Sword Art Online: Beautiful Tragedy
by Furyan01
Summary: It's launch day for the brand new VR game Sword Art Online! Join Thomas and his friends as they log in to a few of the highly coveted 10,000 player spots, only to find out they are trapped within a world where one wrong move could get them killed - in the real world, as well as the virtual one. Hard times lie ahead as Thomas must come to terms with his new reality...


**Sword Art Online: Beautiful Tragedy**

 **Prologue:**

I'll never forget that fateful day in early November. At the time, I couldn't have been more excited. You see, I've been a gamer all my life. From the release of the NES to the PlayStation, I've played it. Delving into worlds outside of the humdrum of my own, made for the perfect release of stress and worry as well as pave the way to amazing adventure. But those games could only give you a taste of real thing. You were still just sitting in your room staring at a character on a screen. Much was left to the imagination. Yet with the release of virtual reality technology, one could affect a more realistic escape and experience a more true to life encounter.

Then came the development of the NerveGear, a VR helmet that could stimulate the five senses via electric signals transmitted to the brain. Now "dives" into a virtual world became almost as real as walking around in the actual world. You could see the "world" through your character's point of view, and directly control their actions with your thoughts. In essence, you were your character. Better yet, the electrical impulses being sent to your brain were capable of simulating the feel of actually being there. You could "feel" the wind on your skin, experience the sensation of warm or cold environments, or get the feedback of hitting something solid with your weapon. You might as well be there yourself, experiencing the adrenaline rush while never leaving the safety of your own home.

So with the release of the newest addition to the virtual gaming community by way of "Sword Art Online," you bet I was one of the first in line to pick up a copy and jump into the fantastic world of Aincrad and experience its monsters and swordplay. And I wasn't alone either. A few of my closest friends were there with me, eager to make the dive together and take on this new world. Little did we know what horrors were in store for us. After all, there couldn't possibly be any danger in playing a simple game. The helmet deadens your motor functions so you don't injure yourself thrashing about while playing, and comes with a killswitch in case of seizure or other medical emergency. It was perfectly safe, or so we were led to believe...

 **Gamemaster:**

Excited as a child at Christmas, I of course didn't sleep much the night before launch. Being nearly fourteen hours behind the people in Japan who were launching the game, I was wide awake and ready to get going. Even if it was early morning for me, I didn't care. I had taken the day off of work so I could go at it all day and not worry. Plus my parents worked early, so they wouldn't be bothering me until late in the day when they got home from their jobs. I had pure freedom for nearly twelve hours, and I was going to make the most of it.

Placing the NerveGear helmet on, I laid back and fired it up. As it came online, I was assaulted by white light with tubes of colors flowing towards me as it did a system check and loaded up the game. Soon it all dissolved away into the title screen for Sword Art Online. I created my account and logged in to the character creation screen. From there I spent a good twenty minutes fleshing out my avatar. This part always took me a while as I liked to personalize all of the details I could. When I got to the naming box, I went with my tried-and-true mmo name of _Yautja_. It was about as unique as I could get, and I always was eager to see if anyone out there would recognize it. Whenever someone did, they were instantly a-ok in my book. Oh, and for those who didn't know, I was always happy to educate them in its meaning. There weren't many people out there who knew the species name for the alien hunters of the _Predator_ movies…

Once all of that was completed, I jumped right on into the tutorial. There I learned the basics of navigating the game menus, movement, and combat. It took a little getting used to. When you are plugged into a helmet and don't have a keyboard or controller available to move yourself in game, it can be a bit confusing and awkward. You tend to overthink what you have to do and end up jolting your avatar around like a fool with over exaggerated movements. However, I was able to comfortably settle into the motions and had little problem making my way around. Luckily, the tutorial had you in a separate instance from everyone else. That way no one could see you making a fool of yourself. As soon as I felt comfortable with the game, I teleported to the Town of Beginnings and began my journey. At first I intended to head straight to the first quest giver, but thought better of it once I realized that my friends would be joining me soon. It would be better to wait and party up for that later. So in the meantime, I decided to go monster hunting outside of town. I had been at it for a about a half hour when I was startled by a voice from behind me.

"I only know one person who would go by that name. Is that you Tom?" I whipped around to see a female player standing a few feet away. As I scanned her to figure out who she was, I saw her name was _Miniature_ _Angel_. I'd know that name anywhere; it was my ex-girlfriend, Kristen. I never expected that I would find her here, or at least not this soon. Aincrad was a big place capable of supporting thousands of players running around at the same time. The odds of coming across someone you weren't actively looking for was pretty low. Nevertheless, here I was face to face with the last person I had planned on seeing today.

"Kristen," I said flatly. "How'd you find me?"

"Wow, that's a rather cold reception. What did I do to deserve that?" she asked frowning at me.

"Would you like an itemized list?" I responded coldly. It had been a couple of years since I'd seen her last, and if you asked me, it wasn't long enough. We had seen each other on and off for a number of years prior. It seemed every time we would get close and I would begin to get comfortable with our relationship, she would find a way to rip the floor out from under me and take off with some new fling of hers. Whenever that didn't work out, she would come back all apologetic and friendly again. After falling for that trick a number of times I'd rather not admit to, I finally cut all communication with her and moved on. Of course there's more to it than that, but I won't bore you with the details. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"No, not really. I just happened to see you over here and thought I'd say 'hi,' though I'm beginning to think that was a mistake. I didn't mean to bother you." She turned to leave, which was fine by me. However, she paused when the sound of a large bell began to ring throughout the area. We both looked up towards the sky, but saw nothing save for the setting sun and some clouds. Before I could say or do anything else, I was enveloped within a brilliant blue-white light. My vision whited out for a moment and there was a quick sensation of weightlessness before returning to normal. When I could see around me again, I found that I was standing in a large, circular courtyard with an ornate water fountain located in the center of it. I immediately recognized it as the main square of the Town of Beginnings. It seems I had been teleported here by an outside force. I also noticed that Kristen had been teleported too. As we looked around in confusion, other players began teleporting in as well. Soon the whole square was brimming with players who had been forced here. People were asking what was going on and wondered if this was some kind of event. I could understand if it was. Perhaps it was a grand welcoming or something, though it was kind of shitty to just throw everyone together without any sort of heads up.

While people were still trying to figure out what was going on, a few noticed something above us. As I looked that way, I noticed a single red lit 'warning' hexagon floating above us in the sky. It began to multiply quickly until the entire area above us was covered in the symbols, casting the square in an eerie red hue. Then a liquid like substance began to leak through between the borders of a few of the hexagons. It didn't fall to the floor, but congealed together about fifteen to twenty feet below the grid of warnings. As it all came together, the substance morphed into the form of a large person covered in crimson flowing robes who floated before us all. No face could be seen from under the hood it wore. Opening its hands, the figure addressed us all.

"Attention players. I welcome you to my world. My name is Akhiko Kayaba, and as of this moment I am in control of this world." People began to whisper amongst themselves at his bizarre choice of words. He continued as if he hadn't heard anything, "I'm sure most of you have already noticed an item missing from your main menus; the log-out button. Let me assure you, this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect. This is how Sword Art Online was designed to be."

I hadn't noticed any problem with my menu since I had gotten in game, but then again I hadn't needed to log out yet so I hadn't checked it either. Now I did, and sure enough, the button wasn't there on my heads-up display, or HUD for short. I looked to Kristen with a look of concern, and saw she had noticed it too. This wasn't good. Before I had a chance to do anything, Kayaba continued his speech.

"You cannot log yourselves out of SAO, and no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the NerveGear from your head. If anyone attempts to do so, a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull destroying your brain and ending your life." That certainly got everyone's attention. People began shouting at the man floating above us, claiming that that was bullshit and that he couldn't do that. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This had to be someone's sick joke. There was no way we were trapped here with no way out. And besides, the NerveGear couldn't be that dangerous. It never would have passed quality assurance if it had such a dangerous function built into it. No one would let that happen, would they?

"Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted to remove the NerveGear. An unfortunate decision, to say the least. As a result, the game has 213 less players than when it began. They've been deleted from Aincrad and the real world." People were beginning to panic. If what he was saying was true, we were all in a very dire situation. Some began to hurl insults and other vulgarities at the man, while some broke down into tears. Kristen unconsciously stepped closer to me, until we bumped shoulders. I felt it but paid it no heed. I was still stuck trying to comprehend just what was going on here. This wasn't supposed to happen, it was just a game. How could Kayaba do this to us?

If he heard anything that anyone was yelling at him or cared, it didn't show as he continued to address us. "As you can see, international media outlets have round the clock coverage of everything, including the deaths." As he said that, a number of screens popped up around his avatar showing various news and social media channels who were indeed covering what was going on around us. "At this point, it's safe to assume the likelihood of the NerveGear being removed is minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as you try to clear the game.

"It's important you remember the following: there is no longer any way to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system forever and the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain. There is only one way for a player to escape now; you must clear the game." At this point, people had given up yelling at Kayaba and most just stared at him in stunned silence as he explained our plight.

"Right now, you're gathered on floor one, the lowest level of Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor." While he described this, an overlay of the floating continent of Aincrad lit up before us showing the layout of the floors leading up to the top of the of its spire-like design. "Defeat the boss on floor 100, and clear the game.

"Last but not least, I've placed a little present inside the item storage of every player. Please have a look," he urged us. I went into the inventory menu and, indeed, there was something there that wasn't before. It was a small mirror. As I brought out the item and looked at it, it showed a reflection of myself. However, I wasn't looking at my avatar. The reflection was of my actual self in real life. When I looked closer to figure out how it was doing this, I was engulfed in bluish light for a moment. When it dissipated, my game body directly reflected how I looked in real life. As I stood there confused by this, the players around me began to change. Many changed sexes all of a sudden, much to the surprise of those around them. Even Kristen's avatar changed to look like the girl I knew from the real world.

She turned to me in surprise, "how the hell is this possible?" I puzzled over it for a minute before it struck me.

"During account creation you have to put in some info to describe yourself. From there the NerveGear did a high density scan to read our faces. That's where this is all coming from."

"That's right," she agreed, "and then there was the calibration that required us to touch ourselves all over so it could map out our body types…" After pausing for a minute, Kayaba spoke again.

"Right now, you're probably wondering 'why?' Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of _Sword Art Online_ and the NerveGear, do this? Ultimately, my goal was a simple one. The reason I created _Sword Art Online_ was to control the fate of a world of my design. As you can see, I have achieved my goal.

"This marks the end of the tutorial, and the official launch of _Sword Art Online_. Players, I wish you the best of luck…" And with that, Kayaba's avatar faded away and left us to our own devices. All I could do was shake my head. This was just supposed to be a game. A place where people could come to have fun and get away from the real world. There wasn't supposed to be any danger here. How could there be? What the hell were we going to do now? How could Kayaba do this to us? Trapping people in a virtual world and forcing them to fight to survive just to feel in control, it was ludicrous! There was no way he could get away with this. He had to be stopped. But until then, we were all stuck here.

 **Friends in Low Places:**

At that moment, Kristen turned to me and whispered, "we've gotta get out of here now!" Still in shock from the recent turn of events, I barely registered that she had spoken. The realization hit me when she took my hand and began to pull me away from the gathering.

"W-wait, what..." I stammered, resisting her.

"Look, it's quite simple," she said grasping my shoulders and putting her face within inches of mine to get my complete attention. "If we want to survive this mess, we've got to get stronger. We'll get stronger by leveling and gaining access to the best equipment we can find. Now, what happens when everyone else here comes to that same conclusion?" She paused a moment to let that sink in.

It took a second but I saw what she was getting at. I was surprised at her calmness with the whole situation. As I looked around to all the people we stood among, I knew she was right. All these players here would descend upon the monsters and bosses on this level, and wipe it clean before moving on to subsequent levels. The gear would be spread out and leave everyone without any real advantage. Hell, it was likely to even devolve into mass hysteria here anyways. Best to distance ourselves as far from that as possible. If we were able to jump ahead of everyone, perhaps even move on to the next level, we could gain the upper hand and be that much ahead of the rest. And if we were partied up, we stood a better chance of being able to handle the increased difficulty of jumping ahead. It really was the best plan. This whole situation was about to collapse in on itself soon enough, and I wanted nothing to do with that.

"Alright, I'm with you. Let's move," I replied retaking her hand. Despite being in a virtual world, thousands of real world miles apart, and with the terms we parted on a couple of years earlier, her hand still felt good to me. Comforting even. A faint smile crossed her features as she began to pull me again, and I could swear she was thinking the same thing. This time I offered no resistance. We had always worked well together in games before, complimenting each other's play style, I was sure this time would be no different..

So we ran, pushing our way through the throngs of people still trying to grasp what was happening to them. I couldn't blame them for their bewilderment. After all, this was supposed to be a safe place to come and have fun. What were you supposed to do when you were told you were locked in this fake world where one wrong step could actually kill you in the real world. The situation was even more complicated by the fact that if your headgear was removed forcefully from the outside, you suffered the same fate. Imaging all of those here with family on the outside who had no way of knowing what was happening in here and hadn't seen the news was not an entertaining thought. The looming threat of a loved one trying to rouse you from your game to see what was taking so long to come to dinner, or what have you, was enough to drive anyone insane. Sure social media was supposedly covering what was happening to us, but not everyone paid attention to that. If not for Kristen, I'd still be among those here in a growing state of panic. As we ran, I spotted a couple of other people leaving as well. I'm sure they had come to the same realization as we had.

We had nearly left the plaza when something caught my eye. I pulled up short, causing my ex to turn with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. She traced my line of sight to three figures standing at the back of the crowd. I could have sworn I heard her groan at the sight of one of them. They appeared to be in deep discussion and hadn't noticed us. I jogged over to them and clapped one of them on the shoulder, causing him to spin around in surprise. Once he noticed who I was, his surprise melted into joy.

"Goddamn, am I glad to see you!" Brian exclaimed while giving me a big hug. As he noticed Kristen behind me, he moved to exchange greetings with her. It was cordial at best. The two had never really been friends before. I guess some things don't change despite your circumstances. Now was not the time to worry about it though. I exchanged greetings with the other two individuals who turned out to be my other good friends, Mike and Luke.

"Good to see you guys," I said to them to which Mike responded in kind and Luke 'meowed.' Yeah, he does that... Always has. Afterwards, Kristen quickly hugged them as well.

"So, uh, what's the plan?" Mike asked nervously. "I was thinking of getting started with the closest mobs and moving fast through them to the next town."

"We're headed to the next area and getting a jump on the rest of the players here," I replied. "Why don't you guys join us? A larger group will only make things easier."

"Sounds good to me," he said looking to Kristen. "Weren't you in the beta? I imagine you know the best path forward..."

"Yes, and yes. We need to get clear of this area and head north to make the next town. From there we can clear a path to the portal to the next section," Kristen explained. It was true, she had been allowed a highly coveted spot within the beta testing phase of development for this game. This was made possible by the fact that Kristen was employed in the games industry. With the big move to more immersive game systems, many companies were liaising with others overseas creating the opportunity for new contacts and relationships. Through these contacts, she had been able to become an American tester for the Japan-based game. With the knowledge she had gleaned from that, she was already leagues ahead of everyone else here.

"Alright, let's move," I stated spurring the group into motion. People were already starting to file out of the plaza. It was only a matter of time until a mass exodus began to clear the level.

And so we pushed through to the next town, bypassing a number of individuals who had started exterminating the monsters around the Town of Beginnings. As we made our way through the next town we slowed a bit to defeat a number of low level trash mobs to gain a couple of levels each and work out our party dynamic. Mike had chosen a spear and shield armament favoring a high defense and threat generation skill set to get and hold an enemy's attention so the rest of us could focus on killing it. Brian came wielding an iron-tipped bo staff, probably inspired by all the fighting games he had played in the past. Luke went double daggers with a focus on stealth and flanking to hit the foe from behind. Kristen had always had a love of fencing so she had chosen to use a rapier and kept her agility high making her best defense not being hit at all. I, myself, went with a katana focusing on strong hits and a decent defense so as to have an off-tank like position on the team, and good personal survivability.

Any fight that lasted more than a few seconds typically broke down into Mike taunting the monster so it focused on him while he bunkered down and weathered its blows with his defensive skills so the rest of us could alternate landing blows on its weak points. We achieved this through the use of Switches. Utilizing this tactic, one person would go in and attack with a charged skill. Then that person would jump out and switch places with the next person who was standing by with their own skill readied. Through this system we were able to damage a foe quickly without any one person garnering too much threat from a monster to take its attention fully away from Mike. The method worked like a charm allowing us to dispatch a high number of creatures who would be a challenge for a solo player to manage on their own.

Groups of creatures presented a different challenge. Mike could only taunt so often and he was unable to hold everyone's attention at the same time. In these situations, it became a little more of an 'every person for themself' operation. Everyone chose a foe and focused on it while lending a hand to whoever else needed it, as they could. If need be, we would pair our damage dealers up in teams of two. With everyone watching each other's back, we soon began to feel invincible. We were quickly becoming a well-oiled machine of destruction. I had high hopes for the future. However, our good luck wasn't meant to last. Reality had to come crashing back down onto us and remind us that we weren't playing for fun anymore...

 **Losses:**

We had just taken out a small pack of wolves with an alpha leader in the previous valley, when we came up to a series of gentle rolling hills covered in knee-high grass swaying from a light breeze. The sky was bright blue with nary a cloud in sight. It was peaceful, serene even. If only it had been real... Luke had taken the lead to provide a bit of recon on what was ahead of us. The others and I were lagging a bit behind conversing amongst ourselves while I kept an eye on the scout. We had been going for about eight hours or so since we had left the plaza back in the Town of Beginnings.

"So I've been thinking..." Mike said while he picked at the edge of his shield. "Just how exactly are we supposed to clear all one hundred floors of this game? That'd take a long time. I mean, we're just at home lying in our beds plugged into the NerveGear. We can't log out, can't get up to eat or drink. Just exactly how are we to survive here? I know you can go about two weeks or so without food, but water is a different story..."

"That's an excellent point. Yet, I'm more worried about those around us on the outside. How long until they realize our situation? Not all of them may be paying attention to the news or other media. What's to keep them from trying to rouse us and accidentally killing the connection when we refuse to respond?" I added glancing at Kristen worriedly. She knew how my dad was; she had the same look in her eyes too. He wasn't a fan of the games I played, and how was he going to react once he saw I was plugged in all night? I'm sure the same thought was going through Mike's head too. His dad was known for throwing fits when people didn't act how he wanted them to. The possibility of him forcibly removing Mike's headgear in frustration was as likely to get his son killed as any threat within game. Then there was Luke with his young boy who was at home alone with his plugged in father... The whole thing was a harrowing series of thoughts.

"Even if neither of those issues presented itself, there's still the problem of the bosses," Kristen brought up. "We testers didn't make it to the end of the game, so we've no way of knowing what to expect from the high level bosses. Hell, even the ones I've seen could have changed their dynamic since release."

"That's true," Brian added. "Think of how many tries it typically takes a team to learn a boss' attack patterns and how to get around them. How many wipes before you could know how to successfully defeat it. We only get one chance here. This is no small feat we're talking about. I'd say it's practically impossible. The losses from every try alone, would be ridiculous." This whole situation seemed completely insurmountable.

After that, our group descended into an uncomfortable silence for a while during which Kristen took my hand and squeezed it gently as we walked. I feared for her and Brian, as they both lived alone. She was states away from her family too, while he was a bit less so. Unless a colleague or friend had access to their places or a family member went out to them, there was no one around to help them. We were all running on borrowed time, and the odds were stacked heavily against us.

As Luke crested the next hill, he came to an abrupt halt and crouched down. Taking queue from him, the rest of us quieted and moved quickly to join him. As we looked out over the area, nothing immediately grabbed our attention. The hills in front of us were all still, except for a light breeze rustling the long grass. Slowly, I came to understand what had caught Luke's notice. While I was unable to see anything, I could distinctly make out a series of barks, screeches, and chattering coming from somewhere around us. Unfortunately, with the nature of the terrain I wasn't able to make out the direction from which the noise was emanating. As the others began to hear the sounds too, Luke pointed over to our left.

"Over there. Sounds like kobolds," he stated. I nodded my assent while Kristen shrugged.

"A few kobolds shouldn't offer much of a challenge, or a reward for that matter," Brian stated.

"If it's anything like the beta, they will probably be paired up with something larger like a hill giant," Kristen mentioned.

"Makes sense. We're passed the easy areas where they're usually by themselves already," I added.

"A single giant with a small kobold entourage shouldn't be much of a problem as long as we stay on our toes," Luke said, clearly interested.

"Alright let's do it, but be careful. Nobody wants to die too fast," Mike agreed trying to make light of our overall situation. I frowned at him unamused, but said nothing.

So the five of us set off to take down the enemy group before us. As we traveled over another couple of hills, we found ourselves looking upon our targets. Indeed, it was a small pack of about eight kobolds who were camping with a single hill giant. They seemed to be trying to get a fire going under a spit that had a pair of wild hogs skewered on it. So far, the group hadn't noticed us yet; the element of surprise was still on our side. We split up into two pairs, with Luke and Brian together, and Kristen and myself, that began to circle around the camp and hit them from the sides while Mike approached from the front.

As the sentries noticed our tank bearing down upon them, they barked and howled an alert to the others. While the rest of the kobolds scurried to gather weapons and confront the intruder, the giant simply stood and grabbed its club while trundling towards Mike. As it did so, the rest of our group descended on the kobolds. As expected, they flew into a panic as they found themselves caught between four armed foes. We began to cut them down in earnest. Meanwhile, Mike had the giant's attention as he dodged and shielded himself from the mighty blows from its club that could be described as nothing less than a tree trunk with a boulder fastened to its business end.

As the last of the kobolds fell, we turned our attention to the giant, who had about worn through Mike's defenses. After a particularly hard blow that sent him sliding back a number of feet, I noticed something strange on my HUD. It took me a second to realize what I was seeing, but it was all too clear soon enough. A pair of small red electrical plug ends began to overlay themselves over Mikes name and health gauge. It was the signal for someone who was disconnecting from or losing contact with the server. Typically this was caused by a bad or intermittent internet signal or severe lag. As I looked to him, I could see sluggishness to his movements. Brian noticed this too and began to move to get the giant's attention away from our stricken party member. Meanwhile, Luke was closing in on the giant to deliver a devastating sneak attack from behind. He seemed oblivious to Mike's plight, as he was so focused on his target.

The whole situation was about to spin wildly out of control. As I looked to Mike, I saw a look of confusion turn to pure horror cross his face as he realized what was happening to him. While the giant wound up for its killing blow, Mike's character began to glow white like a small sun before winking out of existence before us all. His health bar went grey and spelled out disconnected on my HUD. With the giant's primary target gone, it spun around and found itself face to face with our rogue who was only a few feet away and easily within reach of its club.

Luke muttered, "ah, shit," and tried lunging to the side but caught the full swing of the creature's weapon, sending him flying to the ground with a heavy thud. With the successful blow to one of us, the giant let out a roar of triumph and turned to face the rest of us. For a moment I thought Luke was dead too, as he laid on the ground motionless. Yet a quick check of his life gauge showed he was still with us, though just barely. If we weren't careful, we would lose him too.

With Mike gone and Luke's health gauge red lining, I was filled with rage. All I wanted to do was tear this thing apart in front of me. I'd already lost one of my best friends; I wasn't going to lose another. After letting out a scream of anguish and rage, I charged the beast before me despite the cries of protest coming from behind me. Ducking under a horizontal swipe from its club, I activated my powerful _Kyōryokuna dageki_ sword skill and cut deeply into its leg, eliciting a roar of pain from it. Halting my forward progress, I was swinging around for another blow when something struck me in the chest. I looked down to find a small wooden bolt embedded center mass on me. My health bar went down only a small amount, but it was enough to put me off guard momentarily giving the giant an opening to strike. My world went topsy-turvy as it knocked me across the campsite to smash through the fire spit and hogs and land on my back at the base of the nearest hill. As I regained my senses, I noticed the kobold reinforcements coming down the hill wielding crossbows. Brian and Kristen saw them too and waded into them, weapon skills flaring, but not before they let off another volley towards us all. I rolled away in time before being hit, but Luke took two hits. I watched helplessly as his HP bar fully emptied and he burst into particles in front of me.

"No!" I screamed, but it was too late. I'd lost another dear friend. By this time a dark shadow fell over me, and I stared up once again at the giant. I could swear it was smiling at me as it raised its club to bash my head in. While I struggled to get up and mount some sort of defense, something flashed past by us both too fast to track. Afterwards, the giant stood erect in place for a moment with a large red line across its chest, indicating a weapon strike there. A clear look of confusion crossed its features as it poked at the line. A second later, it too, burst into particles and disappeared. I gazed along the line of travel from the object that past by to see another player standing facing away from me. He was sheathing a sword on his back before he turned to face me. There was a small smile on his face as he approached and held out his hand to me.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

I numbly took his hand and stood while looking towards where my friends had been not two minutes ago, but said nothing.

"I heard the commotion and came as quickly as I could. I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough to save your friend…" he mentioned. I remained quiet, still processing the loss, as the others of my group made their way over to us.

"Thanks for the assist," Brian said offering a hand. Kristen assented as she moved over to me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders. "I'm Brian," he continued. "This is Kristen and Thomas."

The boy's face went blank for a moment before he shook his head and took Brian's hand in return, "Kazuto, though I go by Kirito here. Where are you from, if I may ask?"

"Heh, yeah, don't have many names like that in Japan, do you? We're from the United States," Brian replied. "Here I go by _LostCrow_ , or Crow for short. This is _Mini_ _atureAngel_ , or Angel, and that's _Yautja_."

"Ah, makes sense then," Kirito said looking to me and Kristen. "Will your friend be alright?"

"Yes, I think," Kristen said looking towards me. "It's just that we just lost two good friends here. I don't think he was ready for that. None of us were, really." She glanced sidelong at Brian who just shook his head sadly.

"That's awful. You have my condolences. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"No...no, you've done plenty. We'll handle it from here, thank you. Just be sure to take care of yourself," she insisted looking around, "Especially if you are gonna run by yourself." Indeed, there was no one else around to be seen which meant that Kirito was most likely going it solo. Quite the dangerous method for the situation.

He smiled genuinely, "I will. Be sure to take care of your friend there." With that he waved and began making his way away from the campsite.

I lost track of time for a while after that. I remember being guided along away from the campsite and across fields we had traveled previously. The shock from Mike and Luke's deaths kept me from being able to focus on anything around me. Soon I found us in a town resting at the local inn. How and when we got there, I hadn't a clue.

 **Grief:**

The next few days went by in a blur. While I was vaguely aware of the comings and goings of Kristen and Brian, I had no idea of just what they were actually up to. The grief of losing two of my best friends so fast was crippling. I knew it was always a possibility that we'd lose someone, but I hadn't expected it this fast. Nor had I planned on losing two at once. I didn't know how to handle it. A dark cloud had settled over me, threatening to smother me. I didn't eat and could barely sleep. When I did manage to close my eyes for a bit, I found myself plagued by the faces of Mike and Luke; their looks of horror and fear staring at me. More than once I woke up crying out in anger and pain while reaching out to try and grab ahold of them. All the while Kristen was nearby to hold and comfort me as best she could. She'd tell me it was 'ok,' that we would be 'ok.' Yet I knew we were far from it. This wasn't a game anymore. People were dying, and if we didn't find a way out, we were destined to share the same fate as those who had already perished.

Slowly, over the next few days, my grief and despair began to turn in on themselves. They became replaced by anger and rage. I'd failed to protect Mike and Luke, and I'd have to live with that. But so help me, I wouldn't lose anyone else close to me. During those next few evenings, while Kristen and Brian slept, I headed out to hunt as many monsters as I could before those two woke up. Kristen had always been a heavy sleeper and I knew she'd be out for a good amount of time considering all that happened. God knew she had spent enough time up with me. Brian was a different beast altogether. He had always been an early riser, and it didn't take him long to catch on to my evening romps. One night he was waiting for me on the edge of the small town we'd been staying in.

"Out for another run, eh?" he asked, already knowing the answer. I didn't say anything but kept walking forward towards my usual hunting grounds. He fell into step beside me without another word, appearing just as determined as myself. And so we hunted as many creatures as we could while raising our levels and skills. We barely spoke during that time, focusing on the battles before us. Our fighting became fluid, with us switching out perfectly to execute our skills against our prey. When it was about time to head back, he turned towards me with that look that we needed to talk.

"Hey man, it's not your fault, what happened to the others," he said solemnly.

"What?" I asked.

"It's not your fault, man. I've been going over what happened in my mind these past few days. Mike disconnected due to a shitty Internet connection, and Luke was just in the wrong place when it happened. There was nothing you could have done to prevent what happened. There wasn't anything any of us could have done. It was just bad luck, that's all," he explained.

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? That it wasn't our fault or that there was nothing we could have done? You're wrong, Brian; we could've just stayed in the Town of Beginnings, or hell we could have just never logged in to begin with. Then none of this would ever have happened to us. We wouldn't be stuck in this hell hole with no way out. Our friends would still be alive," I spat. My anger was rising, but not at Brian. I hated feeling helpless and powerless, and that's exactly how this place made me feel.

"Well of course we wouldn't be in this situation if we hadn't logged in, but there was no way we could have possibly known what would happen. Nobody could have foreseen that the developer of this game was a psychopath who would trap us here while he played God and toyed with our lives."

"You're right, Brian, but here we are and our friends are gone, and they're not coming back!" I yelled.

He didn't yell back, he just grimaced and looked down at his feet. "I know, man, I know. But how will pushing yourself so hard to the point that you get killed help the situation?" he questioned me, his voice soft. "Mike and Luke were mine and Kristen's friends too. We've all lost enough so far, don't destroy yourself and leave the rest of us here. We plan on getting out, and you're coming with us." He stopped and turned to face me, blocking my path. "Now, I'm not gonna tell Kristen that you've been running out on us in the middle of the night to fight on your own. But, I AM going to be coming with you from now on, so you WILL wait for me. We're going to survive, and we're going to do so together as a team."

I couldn't look him in the eyes. He was right; I was being selfish. I wasn't the only person here dealing with the loss of friends. I should be better than this. I would be better, for both Brian and Kristen's sake. I would do everything within my power to get us out of here in one piece. However, there was something I had to deal with first...

When we got back to town and the inn we had been staying at, Kristen was waiting for us with a look that was equal parts worry and anger. When she spotted us coming up the road, she began walking towards us with a glare that threatened to skewer us on the spot but felt most directed at me. As we got within about ten feet of each other, I noticed Brian dropping back and letting me take the lead. Chicken-shit. I stopped and held up my hands disarmingly to try to calm the incoming storm.

"Kristen, I..." was all I got out before she slapped me. While it didn't hurt like it normally would have outside of VR, it was still a bit shocking.

"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded, fighting back tears. "Do you have any idea how worried I was when I woke up from a nightmare to find you gone? And then I head to Brian's room for help, and he's gone too!"

"I'm sorry," I apologized, "I had to take off for a bit. I couldn't sleep anymore and needed to walk to clear my head." Sure it was a lie, but I didn't want to make a bad situation worse by saying that I was out to either fight and win, or die trying.

"Don't bullshit me, I can see you've gained more levels than you had when we came here! You were out there fighting, weren't you?"

"There was some fighting, yes," I tried to explain, "Since I was walking outside of the town."

"That's right," Brian piped up finally, "we came across some mobs that patrolled into us." He was trying to cover for me, but I could see she wasn't buying it. Luckily, she didn't push the topic any further. With a deep sigh she wrapped her arms around herself and turned to head back towards the inn. With a quick glance at Brian, I moved to walk next to her and put my arm around her waist. She tensed a bit, but allowed it.

"Look, I screwed up, I'm sorry. I just needed to work through all of this. I think we can agree this is one fucked up situation and none of us are in our right mind at the moment," I reasoned with her trying to put her at some sense of ease.

"You're right," she agreed sniffling and wiping tears from her eyes. "Just promise me one thing, don't ever do that again. We've lost enough here."

"I won't, I promise," I assured her.

And so we proceeded back to the inn to figure out where we would go from there. We decided to get back out in the field, even if we weren't going to be a part of the clearing groups. The game wasn't going to beat itself, and I refused to rely on everyone else trapped here to do all of the work for us. The only question was how? I knew it would be a long and difficult road before us, but we had made it this far. It had been days, and we were still here. I could only assume that those on the outside were now fully aware of our predicament and wouldn't disturb us and cause more untimely deaths. That was one less problem to worry about, at least. Now if we could just clear the game and go home…

 **Farewell to Another:**

We spent a long time figuring out how we were going to make it in this world. No one was keen on the idea of trying to take on a floor boss. With the losses of Mike and Luke still fresh in our minds, we needed some time to ease back into it. I relied heavily on Brian and Kristen to keep me going. The rage and bloodlust had worn off and now I was struggling with depression again. Yeah, I was a mess and I wasn't afraid to admit it.

The others were doing marginally better. Brian tried to keep a positive outlook for all of us, always seeking the next goal we could surmount. Kristen looked after me while making sure we stayed as healthy as possible. We finally settled on mapping out the floors and selling the data to info brokers with Brian typically acting as the liaison for our dealings. It worked out well for us this way. We were able to maintain a decent edge when it came to our levels and skills, but it wasn't so dangerous that we ran the risk of getting killed at any moment. Plus, the money was good. Guilds were always willing to buy whatever information was available in order to track down the next floor boss. With that in mind, we had no problems acquiring large sums of Cor, the game currency, from brokers who would turn around and jack up the rates even more.

We always mapped together, especially once we entered the dungeon of the current floor we were on. You had to, as monsters there were typically much stronger and more aggressive than the ones outside. And there was always the risk of coming across traps that would easily kill an unwary player. Once we would locate a suspect location or boss room, we would report back as soon as possible to make the information available for the teams responsible for clearing such locations.

On one such venture, we found ourselves deep within the dungeon on the 27th floor. It was a difficult area to navigate as the corridors were very boxy and all the walls had a similar pattern on them making it hard to create visual references. Brian was leading us while I kept my map up in my menu for assistance navigating. Kristen was walking next to me while running her hand along the wall. It had been a while since we had encountered any monsters and I was getting a bit nervous.

Just then Brian stopped and pointed up ahead of us. As I looked up, I saw what had caught his attention. There was a switch on the wall up on our right. We approached the spot carefully, wary of what the switch might trigger.

"Well, should we see what it does?" he asked. Kristen seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing.

"I don't know, I have a bad feeling about this," she remarked.

"I think it's probably just a door switch," I said looking the wall over closely and referring to my map. "There's definitely room for something behind here. But why don't we have our teleport crystals ready, just in case."

"Sounds good, chief," Brian assented and brought out his crystal. Kristen nodded hesitantly and did the same. After readying my own, I placed my hand on the switch plate to activate it. As expected, a section of the wall slid in and up to reveal a small chamber beyond. The room was bare except for a single treasure chest sitting right in the middle of the room. I took one look at it and backed off a step.

"Nope," I said and turned away. Something was off here. I could feel it in my gut. The others agreed, and we decided to mark it as a potential trap. I don't know, had the chest been against the back wall or offset in some other way I wouldn't have been so skeptical of it. It was just way too inviting as it was. Especially with nothing guarding it openly… So far we had survived by not taking anymore reckless chances, and I was not about to break that record now. When we didn't enter the room, the door slid back into place.

Seeing as it was getting to be late in the day, we decided to call it quits and return with the information we had gathered. We teleported back to town. Unfortunately, our usual broker wasn't available to sell to for the evening as he messaged us that he was off busy with a quest. However, he pointed out that a fellow cohort was in the next town over and that we could pass on what we had to her. Brian and I agreed to make the quick jaunt there while Kristen went to rent a couple of rooms for the night.

As Brian and I departed town, I noticed that he appeared to be deep in thought.

"Hey man, what's up?" I prompted him.

"Oh, it's nothing. I was just thinking about the future," he said. "It's going to be crazy once we get out of here. I can't help but wonder what will become of the industry after this mess."

That was an excellent question. I hadn't taken the time to ponder it, with the focus being on getting out of here in one piece. Yet, it had to make you wonder. The game industry, while recognized as a legitimate form of entertainment, and always been scrutinized heavily. For years there were countless reports on the effects of violence in video games on those who played them, indicating that there was some sort of negative correlation there. At the same time, there were plenty of reports to discredit this supposed correlation. Game sales were carefully monitored, with minors unable to directly acquire games with certain levels of violence and mature themes. Whenever there was news of a kid going off the rails and shooting a bunch of classmates, it seemed people always wanted to blame violent games, and music, for the trouble. Games were slowly garnering a bad reputation. This incident would do nothing to help that situation, that much was for sure. Even more so with these reports we had been hearing about player-killers here in Aincrad.

Indeed, now it turns out that we not only have the monsters and dungeons to fear, but fellow players who had taken up the fancy of robbing and even killing others for fun and fulfillment. Christ, it was becoming just like the outside world in here.

"You're right. It's going to be a bumpy ride after this. Plus, we'll also have to face the families of Mike and Luke too. I'm sure they'll want to talk to us and find out what happened in here," I said. Brian winced at that last bit. Neither of us looked forward to having to explain how our friends died. Not to mention just the fact that they weren't around to see anymore.

As we rounded a bend in the road, we found ourselves coming up to a dense forest. We had traveled this path before and knew the locations of most of the creature spawns, so we weren't worried about getting jumped by anything nasty. We came upon a small clearing and immediately stopped. There was a figure lying in the road that had grabbed our attention. As I scanned the body, I realized it was a player. We looked at each other with worry before hurrying over to see what had happened. It was a male of average build lying face down. I knelt down to see if he was awake and was startled to see that his eyes were open. He appeared to be trying to say something, but couldn't manage anything more than simple sounds and gibberish as he was suffering from some sort of paralysis effect. I leaned closer to let him see me and see if I could understand what he was struggling to say.

"Is he ok?" Brian asked peering over my shoulder.

"He's paralyzed, but seems ok," I said bringing up my inventory to retrieve an elixir to fix his condition. As I administered it, the man recovered and slowly stood up.

"Ah, thank you for that. It seems I went and got myself into quite the predicament there," he said stretching. "I'm glad you two happened by."

"It's all good, chief. Say, how'd you end up like that to begin with?" Brian asked. I just eyed the guy, a bit wary. Again, my gut was telling me something was off. None of the creatures in this area inflicted a status like that, nor did the paralysis effect keep you from being able to speak. It just deadened your arms, legs, and neck.

"It's quite the story," he said turning to look around the area as searching for something he dropped while fidgeting with his menu. Somewhere in my head a red flag was starting to go off. I reached out to grab Brian and pull him away from the stranger, but was too late.

The guy whipped around and planted a dagger straight into Brian's chest. Looking down at the blade buried up to its hilt sticking out of him, Brian gaped in shock and stumbled backwards into me. As he began to fall down, I cradled him in my arms to soften the landing. While his health gauge hadn't gone down that much from the initial attack, I noticed it was steadily draining away now. A quick scan showed him suffering from a poison effect. I had only moments to act before it would be too late. But how should I go about it. If I engaged this psycho, I might take too long to drive him off before Brian's HP expired. Yet, if I tried to administer an antidote to him first, I would be left open to attack. Either way, there was a terrible risk.

"You son of a bitch!" I exclaimed as my hands began to shake with rage. I grasped the scabbard of my sword in my left hand and presented the stranger - no, the player-killer - with my right side. With my right hand, I moved it back towards the hilt of my blade trying to give the impression that I was going to draw on him if he moved. Secretly, I was swiping in my menu blindly hoping I came across what I needed with my sleight of hand. Just as I materialized an item in my hand, I felt three small impacts on my backside. Whipping my head around, I saw that three more people had joined us. They all had orange cursors hovering above their heads which was the mark of criminals and likely more player-killers too. This was bad. While I felt I could handle the one before me, there was no way I could take on four at once.

I tried to drop the item that I had retrieved for Brian to use, but I found my hand wouldn't respond. It was difficult to move my head now as well. Looking at my HUD, a small electric bolt icon was hovering next to my health bar. I was suffering from paralysis! My knees grew weak, and I felt heavy on them. Soon I found myself falling on my chest facing Brian, who was just getting up from the ground. Whatever poison they had used against him wasn't just sapping his health, but his strength as well. His movements were sluggish and forced. Pulling out his bo staff, he set himself into a defensive position. I could do nothing but watch as my best friend in the world was about to go up against four armed opponents while I was uselessly lying on the ground, helpless.

"No, run. Get out of here while you can," I tried to tell him, but he just shook his head.

"There's no way I'm gonna leave you brother," he said in a defiant tone.

"Well, isn't this just lovely," the poisoner said, laughing at us. "It looks like we have ourselves a hero here." The three new arrivals laughed in kind, while pulling out a myriad of weapons. "I guess we'll just have to see how good he is. Better make it fast, hero. The clock's ticking…"

Without waiting for the fool to finish, Brian activated a weapon skill and launched himself at the man, extended his staff straight forward into his gut, nearly impaling him. He was thrown off his feet and went crashing into the underbrush behind him. Using the few seconds the assault bought him, he quickly retrieved the item I had been trying to give him earlier. It was, indeed, an antidote that I had pulled up. Thank god for small miracles. While he hastily downed the potion to ebb the loss of hit points, the three remaining attackers launched themselves at him in unison. They attacked with blades and knives but were unable to land any solid blows on their target, as Brian activated his _Kūdetā_ defensive ability. Whipping his staff in lightning fast circles around his body, he was able to deflect any blow sent his way. The only problem with this defense was that it quickly drained his stamina, therefore he could only do it for so long before he would have to rest and reset the skill. He stopped before he could become fatigued, ending the spinning with a swipe across his body at about waist level. The tip of his staff caught one of his assailants in the wrist, sending the man's weapon flying off into the forest. Gripping his hand, he jumped back and let his friends press the attack once more. Yet their attacks proved to be just as fruitless as before. Brian expertly parried and deflected every blow they sent his way. I'd never seen my friend fight like that before, he was a god in that moment. Whenever one of his opponents was able to cut him, it was only a shallow, glancing thing that barely registered on his health gauge. However, these hits came at a price. For every hit he received, he dished out punishment of his own against the fool that had struck him. I was beginning to think we just might make it out of this mess. That was until an axe landed right in the middle of his back.

While the three had kept Brian distracted, the poisoner had crept back into the fray to land a debilitating blow on my friend. Stumbling forward from the impact, Brian was greeted by numerous cuts and slashes from the three before him. His HP bar quickly drained down to just a sliver. The whole group of pk'ers launched a final attack at him from all sides simultaneously. As I stared in horror at what was happening, Brian looked over to me with a wink and a smile on his face. Despite the fact that he was going to die, he was putting on a brave face. He had time to utter one last word to me before they struck him down.

"Peace!" It was our customary 'goodbye' whenever we talked via phone or online. He began to twirl his staff above his head, activating his _Teikiatsu_ skill that would knock away foes from all sides of him. However, it had a one second activation time that proved to be one second too slow. I could only utter a wordless cry of anger and agony as he was skewered from four sides at once. He glowed briefly before bursting into particles and fading away.

"Phew, that was a tough one," one of the killers said wiping at his brow that was hidden by a hood. "Who knew he'd put up THAT much of a fight."

"I'll say, but that makes it sooo much more fun!" another of his comrades proclaimed gleefully. Just then, all four turned to me, still paralyzed on the ground.

"Mother fuckers! I'll kill you all!" I shrieked at them. I fought with all of my strength to break free of my impairment. Yet, despite my struggling, I could barely move my arm more than a few inches.

"Oh, would you look at the mouth on this one," the poisoner teased. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, boy?" I continued to fight my body as I saw the timer running down on the condition. After a few more seconds I would be free to take his head from his neck. I wanted nothing more than to bathe in their blood. I had never hated a person as much as I did these men right now. Pushing with all my might against the crippling paralysis on me, I began to see dark spots in my vision from the strain. I started to actually push myself up to my hands and knees, and even knocked down the timer a few seconds. The three froze in place and stared at me. There was no way I should be able to do what I was doing.

"Enough screwing around, the paralysis is wearing off. Just kill him and be done with it," one of them said. The other three agreed and began to move towards me. Dammit, if only I had a little more time to act. As they stood over me and raised their weapons, one of them snapped his head up and looked to the side, towards the direction Brian and I had come from.

"Shit," he muttered and sheathed his weapon. "Took too long. We need to get out of here." Before waiting for any of his friends to say something, he stuck me with a throwing dagger. I looked on in dismay as the paralysis indicator renewed its duration and I fell back flat again. "Let's go."

"Aww, but we were so close," poisoner complained but followed. All four departed as fast as they could, running away towards the destination that we had been headed in the first place. I could do nothing but watch them retreat into the darkness. A moment later, I understood why they ran away. I heard voices approaching from behind me. I recognized one as Kristen's, though the others I didn't recognize. They were calling out to Brian and me.

"Tom! Brian?"

"Crow, Yautja!"

I heard rustling from behind me, and a sharp intake of breath.

"Omigod, Tom!" Kristen cried out, rushing over to me. She dropped to her knees and held up a full healing crystal. "Heal," she said activating it, instantly restoring all of my missing health as well as removing any status conditions I was suffering. Finally able to move, I slowly stood up with Kristen's help and using my sword as a support. I felt weak though it had nothing to do with the paralysis. Looking around, she asked me, "where's Brian?"

"He's gone. They killed him," was all I could manage through clenched teeth. I was shaking with rage. All I wanted to do was tear off after the bastards, but I knew they were long gone. They could have teleported to any location of their choice and I would never be able to find them.

"It was pk'ers, wasn't it?" a voice asked me from behind. I turned to see Seiko, our usual information broker. Along with him was what I assumed to one of his guild mates. I nodded to him. He sighed and turned to Kristen to explain, "we heard rumors that a group might be operating in this area, but couldn't confirm it. These guys never sit still for long so no one can track them down. I'm so sorry. If I had known, I'd have never set up the meet."

"It's not your fault," I said quietly, hanging my head low and squeezing my sword in a white knuckle grip. "It was mine." All eyes fell on me at once.

"Tom…" Kristen started, but I interrupted her.

"No! I knew something was wrong, but I failed to act fast enough. And now because of my failure, another friend is gone. My best friend is dead!"

"Now hold on, there's no way you could have known they would attack you like that," Seiko said, trying in vain to pull the blame away from me. "Preying on the unwary is these guys' speciality, and you can never know where they'll turn up. You cannot blame yourself for this." Kristen touched my arm, trying to reassure me. It didn't help. I just turned and began to walk back to town, the anger fading away. This loss left me feeling devastated and empty. I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and disappear. Kristen caught up to me and draped her arm over my shoulders comfortingly. I brushed her off and continued walking. Neither of us spoke on the way back. There just was nothing to be said at the moment.

 **Broken:**

We made our way back to the inn she had set up for us late that evening. The whole time I just stared at the ground. As we got inside our room for the night, Kristen stopped me and put her hands on my shoulders to look me in the eyes. I just continued to look at the ground. My awareness was gone. I could only focus on the fact that my best friend was gone.

"Hey, look at me," she said lifting my chin up to get my attention and try to rein me in. I just stared blankly through her. At the moment, she didn't even exist to me. All I could see was Brian's face as he died. There was a calmness to it that was haunting me. She didn't saying anything else to me, but hugged me tightly. I was filled with a deep sadness that threatened to overwhelm me. Burying my face in her chest, I just let go. The tears flowed freely and I didn't try to hold them back. I had lost three people now, and I had been helpless to prevent any of it. This place was killing us all, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt so small and vulnerable. I'd never been in a position like this before, and I hated it. I don't know how long we stayed like that. The whole time, she just stroked my hair and held onto me. I could feel her body heaving and shuddering, as I realized she was crying too. When we laid down to try to get some sleep, I just curled up into a fetal position and tried to wish it all away. Kristen wrapped herself around me to try and comfort me. Normally it would have been an odd arrangement, as she was typically the small spoon when we were together, but this was a special case. When she wrapped her arms around me, I clung tightly to them.

When I was finally able to drift off from exhaustion, I again was haunted by the faces of my friends. Their final moments were being branded into my brain, never to be forgotten. On top of that, I began to have nightmares of the pk'ers and their attack on us. I dreamt that I too was killed and had my brain destroyed by the NerveGear I was wearing in the real world. More than once, I woke in a sweat and cried out in anguish as the poisoner's face faded before me with a devilish smile. Kristen was always right there to calm me and let me know it was just a dream and that I was ok. I began to fear falling asleep and did everything I could to avoid it. I would frequently just sit by the window in our room and stare out into nothingness. I no longer wanted to live in this world. It was too much to deal with. I felt broken and hollow inside. More than once, I contemplated suicide. The sweet release of death was becoming a more attractive option each day then having to continue to exist in this reality. Sometimes Kristen would come in from heading out for food to find me sitting on the bed with my sword in my lap, me staring at it. She knew exactly what I was thinking, and would rush over to me to keep me from trying anything. As she would try to take the blade away, I would fight her. We began to fight on a regular basis. She would insist that we would get out soon and finally be able to go back to our lives. Yet, I knew there was no going back. We'd already lost too much to not be changed. As for getting out of the game, progress couldn't be made fast enough. People were dying everyday. I had begun to think no one was going to make it out. We were all going to die here. Yet, I realized there was one last thing I had to accomplish before that happened. It had slowly come to me during my depression. If I was going to die here, then there were a few people I was going to make damn sure went with me. I owed it to Brian and the others.

I began to distance myself from Kristen, emotionally, if not physically. Things were changing for me, and I no longer was comforted by her presence. It wasn't her fault in any way. I just knew what was coming, and I knew she couldn't be a part of it. I wouldn't drag her down the path I had chosen. It was for me, and me alone. Whenever we would talk, I would keep things short and to the point. When she would lay down to rest, I would sit out in the front room or by the window and focus on other things. She knew something was up, but didn't press the issue. I imagine she just thought it was part of the grieving process. I was ok with that. I wouldn't have wanted to talk about it anyways.

One day as Kristen returned from completing a couple of minor quests for some Cor, she found me sitting on the bed again with my sword out. This time, however, I was taking a whetstone to it to sharpen the blade and repair any lost durability. I had my armor on as well too. She stopped to scan me and took notice that I had upgraded everything. With a quizzical look, she tentatively approached me.

"What are you doing?" she asked. I didn't stop to look at her as I continued my blade maintenance.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting ready to head out," I said flatly.

"I can see that, but where are you headed to?"

"Those bastards killed Brian. I'm going to return the favor," the words came out bitter and harsh. My grief had transformed into something much darker.

"Thomas...you can't do this," she said coming over to sit on the bed and place her hand on my own to stop my sharpening. "I know you miss him, and the others too for that matter, but this is too much. Come on, think this through. You can't sink to their level, you're better than that." I pulled my hand free and inspected the blade. Once I found it to my liking, I got up and sheathed it. Strapping it into place, I started for the door of the out of the room.

"Tom, wait," she said jumping up to try and stop me. When I didn't answer her, her calm disappeared. "You cannot do this!" Kristen exclaimed reaching out to grab my arm. With a rough tug I pulled away from her and continued forward. As I reached for the doorknob to the room she pleaded with me, "Please, don't go! Brian wouldn't want this."

"You know this for a fact, do you?" I spun on her, rage now fueling the glare I gave her. She shirked away from me slightly. "He was my best friend," I continued, "I think I know better than anyone what he would want, or rather, what he would do in this situation."

"He would want you to seek revenge? He would want you to go and kill people to settle a score? I doubt that," she countered. "Brian was a bit eccentric and even self-centered at times, but he was never so selfish as to demand blood. Now stop this nonsense. I know you're hurting, but this isn't the way to go about mourning him."

I dropped my voice to almost a whisper, "You expect me to just let this go; to ignore the fact that there are people in this world who are taking pleasure in hunting down others and murdering them? And now that they killed my best friend, you think I should just move on?"

"You need to let go of this suicide mission you are on. Even if you do manage to find these players and bring them this vengeance you seek, he'll still be gone. And don't forget, killing someone will change you. You will become like them," she pressed. "You can't do this. It's something to be left to the authorities to handle. When we get out..."

"IF! If we get out, you mean," I interrupted. How long have we been here, Kristen? Almost a year has gone by, and we are STILL stuck in this goddamn game! Who's to say that we will ever make it out."

"Then you can let the Army capture teams take care of these people and let them rot in prison for the rest of their days," she yelled at me, tears falling from her eyes. "This isn't you! I know you; you're better than this!"

I walked over to her, wrapping her in a tight hug and kissed her one last time. Then I said to her quietly, "I guess you don't know me as well as you thought," and turned to leave.

"You're right. I guess I don't know you at all anymore," she responded wrapping herself in a hug trying to calm herself. She turned away from me while remarking, "If you leave on this self-imposed death mission, I won't go with you."

"I never expected you to. And it would be best if you didn't. This is for me to do, and me alone," I said calming down some, the anger turning to determination. "You should go and join that guild, the Aincrad Liberation Squad or whatever they're called. Or even the Knights of the Blood. They could use someone of your caliber. Of all of us, you were always the most skilled and likely to make it out of here."

A look of sadness crossed her features as realization set in. "You're not coming back, are you?"

"No, not likely. Even if I do succeed, I won't be the same. You're right in that regard, and I don't plan on dragging you down with me.

"Look, let's not pretend anymore, Kristen. This thing between us, it can't happen. Not again," I said looking back at her. She looked at me quizzically for a moment, as I caught her off guard. Yet just as fast, she recovered seeing where I was going with this. "Had this been just another game like it should have been, we'd never have spent this much time together or gotten this close again. We'd have been cordial at best. You know what I mean. I won't go through this whole mess again, and neither should you. We can be friends if you want, but any other relationship is out of the question." It wasn't nice, what I was doing to her, but it had to be done. I didn't need her taking off after me and getting hurt. Nor would I allow her to deter me from what I had to do.

"You're right, we've played that game enough. We shouldn't hurt ourselves any more than we already have." She agreed, walking over to the bed to sit down to stare at the ground. "Then go, and do what you have to," she continued starting to sob. "I won't be here when you get back."

I nodded and bid her 'goodbye' as I exited the room and made my way out of the inn. It hurt, leaving under these circumstances. I knew I was probably on a fool's mission, but I didn't care. Those murderers would pay for what they had done. I would personally see to it, or die trying. Afterwards, I would accept the consequences.

 **Interrogation:**

I spent the next several weeks maxing out my detection and tracking skills. Whenever I wasn't resting or eating to keep up my strength I was either inquiring as to the location of anyone fitting the description of the individuals we had encountered and following up on any lead given, or I was working on increasing my strength. I knew when I found the assholes responsible for Brian's death, I would need every advantage I could muster. I was sure they weren't the only ones player-killing too. They seemed to be few and far apart, but during my search I came across rumors of more murders being committed throughout the game. There was even a rumor of guilds being created strictly for this purpose. It just goes to show you that people could be the worst. Each report only fueled my intent to hunt down the group I had encountered and send them straight to hell, where they belonged.

As I went, I occasionally heard reports from the front lines where high level players were busy fighting their way through the game's levels in an attempt to clear the game and set everyone free from this nightmare. At the spearhead of this effort were the guild members of the Knights of the Blood and the Aincrad Liberation Force. I couldn't help but wonder if Kristen went and joined up as I had suggested. I knew she wasn't one to sit around and rely on others to fight for her. She was a natural when it came to games like this so I knew she would be fine if she chose to join in the fight. She didn't need my help. Hell, I'd probably just slow her down or be a liability. So I focused solely on my search.

Yet, the harder I looked, the less information I came up with. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, people who killed others for fun didn't socialize with the general population. I couldn't continue to question every random person I came across in hopes of locating my quarry. I either would come away empty handed, or possibly tip them off that I was coming. Eventually, I decided on a different course of action. It was time I payed a visit to the Black Iron Palace. That was where those who had broken the Harassment Prevention or Anti-Criminal Code were taken and imprisoned. I was far more likely to find cohorts of the poisoner and his friends there than anywhere else. With some careful questioning, I figured I could ferret out their location or at least get on the right track.

As I teleported back to the first floor of Aincrad to the Town of Beginnings, I thought back to all that had happened here. Looking towards the sky, I could visualize Akihiko Kayaba floating above everyone as he watched us fighting and dying in this death trap of a world. I wondered what he thought about all that had happened so far. Was he enjoying the fruits of his labor? Did he get off on the violence that he had wrought? Did he like toying with people's lives as if they were nothing more than possessions. I wanted to ask him what he thought of it all, as I slowly choked the life out of him.

I suddenly realized I was just standing in the middle of a courtyard staring up into space. Those who walked by me kept giving me weird sidelong glances. Shaking my head, I refocused on why I was here. The Black Iron Palace was located north of the teleport gate for the town. It was easy to spot as it stood out among the rest of the buildings in the town. The Palace was rectangular in design, encircled by large castle walls and a moat. The palace was assembled with black glossy pillars and metal boards. It had a tall front gate, iron floors and an abnormally high ceiling. Currently, the place was being used as a headquarters and prison by the Aincrad Liberation Force guild. They were also known simply as the Army as they were the largest guild, with almost three thousand players making up its population. Just inside the entrance to the palace was the Monument of Life. Here, a player could see a listing of those who had perished in-game. I stopped to view the names of everyone on the list. There were far more than I wanted to believe. As my gaze fell across Mike, Luke, and Brian's names, I fought back tears.

"I swear, I'll find them," I whispered while placing my hand on Brian's name. Closing my eyes and wiping away moisture from them, I turned to head towards the prison. There I would find all of the apprehended criminal players. It wasn't long before a pair of player guards from the Army stopped me.

"This place is off limits to the public, state your business here," one of them demanded.

"I'm here to speak with the player-killers you have detained here," I responded. "Someone here may have a lead on a group I'm looking for." The two looked at each other quizzically.

"And who are you, exactly," the other one asked.

"It's not important, but if you must know, I'm the one who will be adding the group I'm searching for to the Monument of Life." The words came out dripping in malice. The two guards were taken aback for a moment. Once they recovered, they straightened up and puffed out their chests in defiance.

"That's not gonna happen, sir," one stated. "As I said before, this place is off limits except to Army personnel. We cannot simply let anyone pass by here. You should walk away and leave the apprehension of criminal players to us." I gripped my sword scabbard tightly in my left hand and gritted my teeth.

"I'm not going anywhere! In there is someone who knows who I'm looking for. I will speak with them and find out where those bastards are who killed my friend, and I will not allow you to stop me," I threatened. The men reached for their weapons instinctively, expecting me to attack. Indeed, I was getting close to violence. Who were these men to stand in my way. After all, they weren't really soldiers in an army. They were just players like myself, who had donned a uniform and thought they were in charge all of a sudden…

"What is going on here," a stern female voice called out from behind the two before me. I was so focused on them, I hadn't noticed her approach. The guards turned and snapped a salute to the woman who stood before them. I took a moment to get a good look at her. She was of tall stature with long, silver hair tied up in a ponytail. Her sky-blue eyes shined intensely while her face was sharp and well-featured. She wore an iron-gray cape which fell over a dark green coat and leggings. On her waist, she carried a short sword and whip. Her arms were crossed as she took stock of me.

"Commander Yulier, this civilian was demanding access to the prisoners," one of the guards said.

"Is that so? Who are you, and what gives you the right to make such a demand," she asked me.

"My name is Yautja, and my business is my own," I stated dryly.

"I'm afraid I cannot help you then," she responded unfazed. "If you are unwilling to state your purpose, then we are done here. For all we know, you could be here to try break out one or more of the criminals being held."

"I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth," I said trying to calm myself. "The last thing I want to see is any of them gaining their freedom."

"Then let us speak, and perhaps we can come to an arrangement. Come," she beckoned.

"Ma'am?" one of the guards protested.

"It's fine, corporal. I doubt this man would be so bold as to attack a leading member of the Aincrad Liberation Force in their base of operations." With that, she gestured down the hall to me. Nodding and unsummoning my sword, I walked with her until we came to a small room setup as an office of sorts. The woman sat as a desk while I seated myself across from her. "I am Commander Yulier, of the ALF. Now would you be willing to tell me what this is about? It is unusual to have someone ask to see a prisoner."

"I can imagine so," I said. "As it stands, I recently lost a good friend to a small band of player-killers. I was nearly killed, myself, save for the good timing of reinforcements. I am hoping someone here will have information on helping me locate those responsible."

"I am sorry to hear that, truly," Yulier said with a look of sorrow crossing her features. "It is a sad thing that we must guard against not only this world, but ourselves as well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can grant your request. It is the responsibility the Army to deal with these miscreants. How would it look if you were to get hurt, or worse, after gaining the knowledge you seek here. There are more than enough names on the Monument of Life for my taste."

"I can take care of myself, I assure you," I responded. "I've spent the last several weeks training and honing my skills. I will be more than a match for them."

"Be that as it may, I still cannot grant your request in good conscience. As a counter offer, I am willing to take any information you have on those who assailed you. We will then do our best to track them down and incarcerate them here, where they will stay for the duration of our time here," Yulier offered.

"No, that isn't good enough," I said flatly. As I glanced to the side, I noticed an odd shadow in the doorway. Was someone listening to our conversation? How long had they been there?

Yulier sighed while placing her hands on the desk. "Then I think we're done here. I'm sorry we couldn't come to an arrangement, but this is for the best. The Army will continue to do whatever we can to keep players safe until we are all able to escape this game. I know I cannot stop you, but I would advise against taking any rash actions. It would be a tragedy to see another name on the Monument."

"I understand," I said sighing while rising to leave. I made a mistake in thinking the Army would be helpful in my search. I would simply have to figure out another way to get the information I needed. Perhaps one of the information brokers would have what I was looking for. The only problem would be the cost… As I left, I noticed the shadow was gone. There was no one to be seen in the hall either.

As I made my way back to the entrance, I came across a peculiar looking swordsman leaning against the wall in the Monument area. He was short, yet solidly built. His hair was eye catching, as it was sienna colored and spiky. It reminded me of a cactus. To match his unusual hair, he had a similarly colored goatee and brown eyes. He wore a set of scale mail armor, with a large one-handed sword strapped to his back. When he saw me, he beckoned me over. Unsure of the man, I approached cautiously.

"Can I help you," I asked, while keeping a healthy distance from him.

"No, but I think I can help you," he responded with a grin. "I hear you're looking to have a chat with one of the punks we have locked up here."

"So that was you listening in on my conversation with Yulier? Are you with the Army too?"

"I sure am. The name's Kibaou. I'm one of the commanders here, and for the right price I can arrange the meeting you're looking for." I looked at him skeptically. He didn't exactly project an air of trustworthiness. Yet, if he could get me the face to face time I was looking for, perhaps he could be useful.

"Name your price then," I said.

"Well, you already did me a solid by not giving Yulier any information that would send any of our forces on a useless hunt for people who don't want to be found. I'd rather the Army stay focused on clearing this hell hole so we can all go home. With that, I think a discount is in order. Let's say we settle on a measly 50,000 Cor," Kibaou stated. While I kept a straight face on the outside, inside I balked at the price. Although I could afford it, it wasn't cheap by any measure.

"That's quite the price for a simple meeting," I said. "How can I be sure you'll deliver?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. I'll get you your time. I just need a little something as compensation. I AM going against guild policy here, you know," Kibaou stated.

"Yeah, I understand," I said. "Look, I'm not comfortable giving you everything up front. I'll give you half now, and the second half after I get my meeting. Deal?"

"That'll work for me. Meet me back here around 10:30 tonight. By that time Yulier and the guild master will have settled in for the evening," he instructed. I nodded and gave him the first half of the payment.

After leaving the palace, I walked the Town of Beginnings for a bit. It was still early in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time to kill before I needed to be back. The problem was there wasn't much for me to do around here. This being the first level of Aincrad, there was no benefit to hunting any creature mobs. The shops held nothing of interest for me either. Instead, I decided to wander and think about the meet up later that evening. As the time drew near, I slowly made my way back to the Black Iron Palace. When I got there, Kibaou was waiting for me yet again.

"You ready," he asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Alright, let's do this," Kibaou turned to lead me inside past the Monument of Life. I glanced at it one last time while I continued to follow. We made our way into Army territory, where the guards said nothing to our passing. I guessed that Kibaou was holding to his word about getting me in to talk with the criminal element held within. Once we crossed into the prison area, Kibaou turned to me.

"Now look, I can get you five, maybe ten, minutes in there before anyone gets suspicious. I suggest you talk fast." I nodded, as he led me to a closed off room away from the main cells. Another pair of guards stood on either side of the heavy metal door that led inside.

As Kibaou and I approached, one of them unlocked the door and let us inside. The room was square in design, and held nothing save for a small table and a pair of chairs. One chair was currently occupied by an individual in manacles. It was a girl, and he was dressed in simple clothes. She had dark skin and a slender face with sharp features. Her long black hair was down and in a disheveled state. As we entered, she looked up at us defiant.

"The hell is this?" she demanded. Kibaou said nothing in return, and just leaned against the wall. I looked at him, a bit unsure myself. I was expecting someone a bit different. As if he read my mind, Kibaou shook his head at me.

"Don't worry, we caught her as a spy for one of the player-killing groups being held here. She's responsible for gathering supplies, scouting out potential targets, and relaying information to the killers." I narrowed my eyes at her, and sat down in the chair across from her.

"Very well, she'll do," I said coldly. Addressing the girl, I continued, "answer my questions and this will go smoothly."

"Who the hell are you, and why should I tell you anything?" she demanded. I ignored her questions and clasped my hands in front of me on the table.

"I'm looking for a small group of pk'ers. Four of them, in total. You may know of them. They've been known to hunt down unsuspecting players on the 27th floor. Their primary tools are the use of poison and paralysis to weaken their prey before attacking with small blades and axes. Tell me where I can find them, or point me to someone else who does, and you can go back to your cell."

"And if I don't know anything?" she countered.

"You do. Whether you know of the exact group I'm referring to, or of someone else who does, you have something to offer," I replied. "Now, tell me what you know."

"Screw you, I'm no snitch," she spat. I closed my eyes and flexed my hands into fists, trying to keep my cool. She saw this and pressed, "aww, what's the matter? Did you really expect me to just give up what I knew?" She started laughing. "You moron, are you really that naive? Go back to you little hovel and quit trying to play the hard case, little boy. It doesn't suit you." She looked to Kibaou next, "get this wannabe detective out of here. It's pathetic." I was losing the battle for control. Who did the woman think she was? I couldn't allow her to keep me from completing my mission. I wouldn't. This was too important for me to give up. If she didn't give me what I wanted voluntarily, I'd drag it out of her.

"I'm not leaving until you give me what I want. Keep up this attitude, and you're not gonna like what happens," I warned her.

"Heh, whatever. I ain't afraid of you," she retorted. "Like I said, you can take your tough guy act and shove it. Not like you're gonna do anything anyways…"

I snapped at that point, jumping up and flinging the table against the wall. As the two objects collided, a small purple hexagon panel lit up saying "Immortal Object," indicating that the wall was unable to be broken. The table shattered and evaporated, however. While trying to get clear of the table, the girl toppled over in her chair. I grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and wrenched her up to her feet. Slamming her against the back wall, I brought my face to within only a few inches of hers.

"Tell me what I want to know, you bitch," I screamed at her. She gasped and began to tremble in my grasp. I pulled back for a punch and slammed my fist into the wall next to her head, causing her to flinch. Another purple hexagon popped up, though I ignored it. Tears began to well up in the corners of her eyes. "Tell me, goddammit, or I'll add your fucking name to that list out there!"

"Dude, take it easy," Kibaou said, putting a hand on my shoulder. I pushed him off me, before turning and striking the wall next to the girl again, just grazing her ear.

"Tell me!" I hit the wall a third time.

"Ok, ok, I'll tell you," she pleaded. "Just stop, please." I back off a step, letting go of her and crossed my arms. She fell to the floor in a heap before feebly standing back up. After taking a moment to collect herself she spoke. "I don't personally know the guys you're looking for, but I'm pretty sure I've come across them before. They were looking to join the guild I was in, but our leader turned them down. They like to hang out on floor twenty, I think, in the woods east of one of the smaller villages. That's all I know, I swear." I placed my hand on the wall next to her again, causing another flinch.

"You'd better be right about this, or I'll be back," I spat in a venomous tone while staring her in the eye. I then turned to leave. "We're done here," I said to Kibaou. As I exited the room, and began stalking down the hall back towards the entrance, the spiky haired player caught up to me.

"Geez, you treat all your women like that," he asked in a mocking tone. I just glared at him.

"Women, no. Pieces of trash like that, yes. She helped kill people, I have no sympathy for her," I said stopping to finish our business. I tried to hide the fact that my hands were shaking by pulling up my menu and paying out the remaining 25,000 Cor I still owed the man. I had lost it back there. Raising my hand against a woman was something I had never thought myself capable of. It scared me to think about it. Then again, she was a pk-er. While she may not have been the one to swing the blade, she willingly assisted those that did. She was no better than them in my book. She was a monster, and I didn't care what happened to her. For her to sit there defiantly and mock me… I wouldn't stand for it.

Once Kibaou confirmed the trade, he looked back to me, "so what are you gonna do now? Hire a guild to bring those guys in," he asked.

"Not quite," I said summoning my sword and placing it on my waist.

"You're crazy. You can't seriously expect to take on a group like that all by yourself," Kibaou exclaimed.

"It's not your concern, so don't worry about it," I responded walking away.

 **Kali:**

Over time, my search brought me to a heavily wooded area on the eastern side of the twentieth floor of Aincrad. Following what the girl in prison had told me, I focused my search on that side of the map. I knew I was getting close to my quarry when I heard that three people had recently disappeared from the area. It seemed that the attacks were happening during the evening hours when foot traffic through the zone was at its lowest and there was less of a chance for there to be witnesses. I performed a quick recon of the area before stocking up and resting in a nearby town. The next evening I made my way to the woods to search for the culprits. Picking a path through the foliage, I tried to remain as quiet as I possibly could while keeping an eye on my radar for any movement. After several hours of skulking about, I had turned up no trace of the murderers. As dawn approached, I decided to abandon my efforts for the night and try again the next day. However, the next night's hunt proved to be just as fruitless as did the following evening.

By the end of the fourth night, I was beginning to think the killers had moved on to a new area and was about to give up the search altogether, when I heard a scream from somewhere around me. By the second scream, I was running towards its location. As I came upon a small clearing, I found four men surrounding a pair of players. One of them, a male, was sprawled on the ground struggling to move but was having difficulty doing so. A quick scan showed he was suffering from paralysis. The other person, a female I assumed from the scream earlier, was brandishing a curved blade similar to a sickle while trying to fend off the advances of her four assailants. The men advanced on the lone female laughing and taunting her, paying no heed to the downed player. One of them moved to stand in front of the frightened girl with a large butcher's blade held at the ready. She lunged at him half-heartedly, to which he batted her blade aside and shoved her to the ground between his comrades. The group erupted into laughter as she went sprawling. From his laugh, I knew one of them to be the poisoner from before. At the moment, Butcher's blade had his back to me and I took the chance to strike.

Bursting from behind the tree I was using for cover to observe the situation, I ran at the man while activating my Iai Strike sword skill. One of the other attackers noticed me and tried to shout a word of warning to my target. As he turned to see what the commotion was about, he had only a split second to utter a cry of disbelief before I cut him cleanly in two. His avatar's body showed a large red cut along his midsection while his HP bar drained down to nothing on my HUD. Once it zeroed out, he disintegrated into a swarm of white triangular particles before disappearing. The others were taken aback as they stared at me in shock. They clearly weren't expecting to face a decently leveled player on one of these earlier floors. Their shock turned to anger as they brandished their weapons at me.

"You bastard! Who do you think you are?" one yelled at me. "You just signed your death warrant."

"Wait," another stated. "I recognize this guy. He's the one who got away from us a while back on the 27th floor." That information was from the poisoner. The group then took a few steps back and set themselves suddenly a lot more wary of me. After all, who narrowly escaped death only to go hunting for it again?

The girl on the ground looked up at me, clearly unsure of what to do. Being stuck between two people who were trying to kill each other was not a place one wanted to find themselves.

Without taking my eyes off the other three player-killers before me, I said to her, "Get behind me. I'll deal with them."

She stood up and moved beside me, defiance playing across her features. "I can fight." There was an accent there I couldn't place, but it wasn't important at the moment.

"No, this is my battle," I growled, "now move aside. I have unfinished business with these bastards."

"To hell with that, they tried to kill my friend and me," she spat back.

I didn't have time to argue with her further, as the three remaining enemies before me launched a three pronged attack on us. I lunged to the side while bringing my katana up, narrowly deflect a slice that was intended to behead me. Using the momentum of the deflection, I spun my weapon around over my head to bring it down in a diagonal cut. The blade tip bit into its target's shoulder before he was able to leap away. With a grunt, he fell back while one of his partners rushed me with a flurry of attacks. They came in so fast that I couldn't parry or dodge them all. After scoring a number of small cuts along my arms and legs, he switched out with the original foe I faced. This time he came in with an activated sword skill. With no way of knowing what it would do, I had no choice but to fall back and try to evade it. The man shot forward at a blinding speed as he tried to run me through. I twisted away but not before he gouged through my left side.

As my HP bar dipped into the red zone, a cruel smile spread across my enemies face. This wasn't going well, but I wasn't giving up. In the background, I could make out the sounds of more blades clashing. It seemed the girl was holding her own for the moment. I charged the first foe with a number of quick cuts that pushed him back. As his friend came around behind me, I anticipated the flanking maneuver. Watching the foe before me, I saw his eyes shift past me to glance at his partner. Using that as a queue that the flanker was close, I reversed my blade grip and stabbed backwards to the side that he was coming up on to impale him. To insure the kill, I twisted the blade in his gut before ripping it free causing him to burst into shards and fade away. The remaining killer roared in anger and came at me with a mighty overhead slash. Lifting my blade to intercept the blow, I activated my _Hangeki_ skill which was a counter-type skill that repelled the strike and threw him off balance. Using the opening provided, I smashed the pommel of my sword into his face dazing him, and followed through with a cut from his collar bone down through his abdomen. With a shriek, he exploded in front of me leaving just one other foe to deal with. I just hoped I wouldn't be too late to save the girl who he had been fighting.

However, before I could turn to face the last threat, it seemed he found me first. With laughter that could only be described as maniacal, he brought his axe down, cutting deeply into my back and sending me sprawling with my sword flying away. I rolled over and looked around frantically for the girl who had been fighting this monster a moment ago. She was lying face down a few feet behind our assailant, unmoving. At first, I feared she was dead but the fact that she was still physically here told me otherwise. Bodies never hung around once the individual had been killed - player and creature both. Her comrade was nowhere to be seen, however. Just then I noticed a new item on my HUD. The indicator for paralysis had appeared just under my health bar again. Now I understood. It was their typical MO. She had been disabled by this maniac and was lying helpless on the ground, and I was to share her fate. With just a sliver of health left, I prepared for the end. The poisoner stood over me with a gleam of malice in his eyes as he raised his weapon to deliver the final blow. With my sword out of reach, I had no way to defend myself. In fact, I could do nothing but watch as I was about to be hacked to death by this freak.

He began laughing again as he started his swing down into me. I closed my eyes and prepared to die. A moment passed, then another and nothing had happened. I open my eyes to see him still standing there laughing with axe held overhead. Then I saw the blade tip protruding from his chest. I looked in disbelief as I saw the girl standing behind him panting heavily. As she ripped her blade free of the man, he burst into particles and faded away, his laughter dying with him. The girl stood there for a few moments, staring at the spot the killer had occupied. She then dropped her weapon and ran over to me.

"Are you ok?" she asked, opening up her inventory to retrieve a small flask. There was a Germanic accent to her words.

"How...?" was all I could muster in response. Though she seemed to understand exactly what I meant.

"Anti-paralysis charm. I've had one equipped for a while now. Here, take this," she said uncapping the flask and holding it to my mouth to drink while lifting the back of my head so I wouldn't choke. As I sipped it, my paralysis abated.

"Thank you," I said, finally able to move. I stood up and pulled out a health potion to get myself back in fighting shape.

We stood silent for a moment catching our breath and reflecting on the situation. After a few seconds, the girl pushed back a hood she was wearing, revealing crimson red hair that flowed down past her shoulders to about her mid back. She had fierce green eyes that commanded attention when you looked into them. With the game changing our avatars to match our real life likeness, she was about five and a half feet tall with a slim but athletic build.

After walking over to pick up the curved blade she had dropped earlier, she turned back to me and said, "Thank you for coming to my aid. I doubt I'd still be here if you hadn't shown up."

I looked around while gesturing, "Your friend...?"

"He didn't make it. That psycho killed him during our fight," she responded with an edge in her voice while glancing to where her partner had been before.

"I'm sorry. If only I had gotten here sooner," I lamented.

"It's not your fault. I'm Kali, by the way."

"Yautja," I said returning the introduction. She's screwed up her face at the unusual tag I had chosen. "It's the monster from the _Predator_ movies, if you've ever seen them," I explained.

"Ah, I understand now."

"Kali? Would that be in reference to the Hindu goddess," I asked.

She blushed slightly, "Yes. A bit too much time spent playing a certain MOBA. What gave it away?"

"I've dabbled in the same game I believe. She wielded a similar looking weapon to the one you have." She had a bit of a sheepish look on her face as she refused to look me in the eyes. It was kind of cute, actually. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Hell, my tag is way more nerdy than yours," I assured her while retrieving my own weapon and sheathing it. She seemed to perk up a bit before looking around and remembering where we were. A solemn look crossed her features.

"Was he a close friend of yours?" I asked.

"Yes, we have played many games together over the years. He even bought me my NerveGear and a copy of this game so we could play."

"I see. Again, I'm truly sorry," I said glancing around to make sure there were no other threats about.

"Perhaps we should leave this place," she suggested.

"Agreed. The nearest town should be this way," I pointed out and began to walk. After a moment's hesitation, Kali fell into step beside me. We walked in silence for a while before she turned to me.

"Earlier you said that you had unfinished business with those guys. What did you mean by that?"

I grimaced and didn't say anything at first. She saw and quickly backpedaled, "You don't have to answer that..."

"No...it's ok. A while back, my friend and I were attacked by them. Luckily, help arrived forcing them to flee, but not before they killed my friend. I've been tracking them since."

"I see. So... is this something you usually do; hunting people and..." she seemed unable to finish the question so I did it for her.

"And killing them? No, this was a first for me. I'm generally against any sort of player versus player action. It's never suited me, but this was different. I couldn't let my friend's death go unanswered, or unpunished. If you wish to think less of me for being bloodthirsty, then that's your prerogative," I stated flatly.

"I don't see how I could. After all, your decision to seek revenge saved my life. I'm grateful for it. And wanting to avenge a close friend seems noble enough to me," she explained.

I glanced sidelong at this girl trying to figure out if she was being serious or full of shit. Who speaks of acting noble this day in age? However, the tears flowing down her face told me a different story. Whether it was the shock of what happened falling off, or the anguish over her fallen friend, I could see she was being truthful. We spent the rest of the walk to town in silence, while both keeping to our thoughts.

 **Orange Cursors:**

As we approached the edge of town, I noticed something odd. As we walked down the main street, people would stop and stare at us. Some began to whisper amongst themselves, while others looked angry at our passing.

Taking notice of the looks, Kali asked me, "Why are they looking at us like that?"

"I don't know," I responded. Though it wasn't long before we found out why. As we came to the local tavern, we went inside and took a seat at one of the tables to get something to drink. It was unfortunate that there was nothing truly alcoholic to be had. God knew I needed something after what we'd just been through. We sat quietly sipping our drinks from the NPC bartender for a bit before the doors to the tavern opened and four burly players entered. They were well armed and armored, and looked like they were ready for a fight. As their gazes fell upon Kali and me, one stepped forward and motioned towards us.

"Excuse me, would you two mind coming with us?" the leader asked, his tone indicating that they weren't going to take 'no' for an answer. Kali looked at me with uncertainty on her face. I remained sitting but turned to address the man.

"What's the problem? We're just trying to enjoy a drink here; we're not causing any problems," I responded. The commander kept a straight face, but I visibly noticed a couple of his followers tense a bit.

"I'd rather not make a scene here, sir. We just have some questions for you and your companion there," he pressed. "We'd appreciate it if you would accompany us to a better location."

"And if we determine that going with you isn't in our best interest?" I questioned him. His jaw shifted, as he didn't like my response, but at this point I didn't really care. Their demeanor alone was enough to be threatening, and I wasn't having any of it. Kali shifted in her seat with a worried look on her face. "Clearly you are making my companion here uneasy, and if it takes four heavily armed soldiers for a bit of questioning then I think we will not be going anywhere with you."

One of the commander's lackeys stepped forward, backhanding a stool out of his way to clatter against a nearby table. "You dare take that tone with us, criminal? You're lucky we haven't thrown you straight into prison yet!" His sudden movement and outburst brought me to my feet as I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword. In response, the three soldiers around the commander did the same. The commander, himself, made no move to draw his sword. He simply frowned and held up a hand to make his troop stop any further action. Immediately, they all relaxed a bit and unhanding their weapons. He crossed his arms across his chest as he addressed me again.

"My colleague has a point. It's our responsibility to deal with orange players such as yourselves. Normally, we apprehend them on sight and teleport them to a holding facility for incarceration until we can make it out of this infernal death game. You two are an interesting case, as you willingly walked right into town for everyone to see. I figured this warranted a lesser approach than we usually take against your kind, hence us asking you to come with us. We could make this much more difficult for you."

It hadn't even dawned on me that Kali and I were marked as orange players after the fight earlier. Technically we shouldn't have even been able to enter town in the first place, as players who have committed a crime are attacked on sight by powerful NPC guards at any safe town's entrance. Yet if you have less than four offenses under your belt, your cursor would gradually return to a green, normal state and allow you access again to safe areas. The walk back after our run in earlier must have given us enough leeway for our cursors to return to a lesser shade so that we could get in without harassment, but still enough for players to notice that we had done something previously. These men here weren't our enemies, they were simply trying to keep the peace and save lives actually. I released my sword hilt and relaxed, offering no more resistance. Besides, towns like this one were protected by an Anti-Criminal Code effect that prevented violence, so my weapon wouldn't have done me any good even if I had drawn it. The most you could do was challenge someone to a duel in town. If both parties accepted the request, then you were free to go at one another. However, you could only damage a challenger down to about a quarter of their health before the duel ended. No one could die from a duel. If I had engaged these soldiers, it would simply be a contest of physical might while we all grappled. The four of them would likely overpower me and they would simply drag me off to a holding cell somewhere.

"I see," I said to the commander. "Though this is a bit of a misunderstanding. You see, my friend and I were attacked outside of town earlier this morning, and we were forced to defend ourselves from a group of player-killers. We had no choice but to kill them, or else we wouldn't be here."

"He's correct, though it was more that I was the one under attack, and he came to my rescue," Kali added standing up and moving over next to me.

Shaking his head, the commander said, "I'd like to believe you, but I would need proof of this encounter you speak of before I could dismiss the concerns of the townspeople here."

"And how, exactly, do you expect us to present you with proof?" I asked. "It's not like bodies hang around to be investigated. And the only other people around to witness the act were all slain."

"Unfortunately, that's a problem for you to consider," he replied. "Until your innocence can be determined or someone can vouch for your honesty, I'm going to need you to come with me and my men. I give you my word that no harm will come to either of you, and if it is determined that you acted strictly in self-defense as you say, you will be released immediately."

I sighed and looked to Kali. "It seems we don't have much of a choice here."

"I agree. Why don't we just go with them. It's not worth the trouble, and I'm sure they'll let us go soon enough," she said.

"I'll also need your weapons, if you don't mind," the commander added. "You will, of course, get them back upon release." I didn't like the idea of being taken anywhere defenseless, but if that was the way it had to be, then I would comply. After all, the more we worked with them, the better it would reflect upon us. Yet as I moved to retrieve my sword, we were stopped by a small voice that spoke up from behind the soldiers.

"Ahem, excuse me…"

The three men behind the commander jumped and spun to see just who had snuck up on them from behind without their knowing. Even the commander had a look of surprise as he turned too. Standing behind the four men was another player. It turned out to be a young looking female in a hooded cloak and leather armor. She had brown eyes and curly auburn hair, as well as whisker like markings on her face.

"Miss Argo, what are you doing here?" the commander asked, clearly familiar with this player.

"I'm here to vouch for the innocence of these two players," she responded.

"You are familiar with these two?"

"Not specifically, no. We've never met, but I was able to glimpse their battle from afar. The female and another were set upon by a group of four player-killers. This one," she said while pointing at me, "came to their aid. While the other person didn't make it, these two were able to overcome the assailants."

"I see. That changes things immensely," the commander said while rubbing his chin. "In that case," he said turning back to Kali and me, "you two are free to go."

"Thank you," I responded reaching my hand out for Kali's. She took it and allowed me to lead her towards the door. The soldiers stepped aside and let us pass unscathed. As I approached Argo to thank her, she nodded her head towards the exit and preceded us outside. We all filed out with Argo, Kali and myself heading one way and the soldiers another. We walked for a bit until we came to a small square with a fountain in it. Argo stepped up to the railing around it and turned around to lean against it.

"You have our gratitude, thank you," I said to Argo extending a hand. She didn't take it but smiled at me.

"No problem. However, it's gonna cost ya."

"Oh," I responded, furrowing my brow. I hadn't expected her to demand payment, though I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. "Just how much are we talking here?" I inquired while checking my available Cor.

"It seems you haven't heard of me, so I guess I should explain a bit about me. I'm an information broker and middle-man for player dealings. That being said, I would be willing to settle for the ability to sell the information of your fight to any interested parties," she proposed. Honestly, I didn't really care about who knew. And if that was all it would cost me, I was fine with it. However, it was up to Kali on whether it was a fair price. Considering it concerned her own status and the death of her friend, she would have the final say in the matter.

"No, I don't want to use the death of a friend as a payoff for your service. We'll just have to come up with another way to repay you," Kali stated flatly. I could see that she was still quite upset by the whole matter. "And besides, if you were close enough to see what was happening, why not help us?"

"Sorry, fighting other people isn't something I'm interested in. Bad business, that," Argo explained. "I was quite a ways off from you guys, anyways. By the time I would have gotten there, I knew it would be over one way or the other. And who's to say that if the pk'ers had won, I wouldn't have been their next victim?"

I placed a hand on Kali's shoulder reassuringly while suggesting a different deal. "How about this: we owe you a favor? It can be whatever you want. Just give us a call when you want to collect, and we'll figure it out."

"Hmm, it's not how I typically do business, but I suppose this is a special circumstance," Argo responded. "Alright, a favor it is. I'll just add you two to my contact list and we'll go from there." She opened her menu and sent out friend requests to the both of us. After accepting, we turned to walk away. Before we could leave however, Argo mentioned one last thing to us. "A free piece of advice: you two should stay the night in town and give your cursors time to revert wholly back to normal. That way you won't encounter any more cold receptions like you did here."

"Thanks, I think we will," I said looking to Kali, as she nodded in agreement. We bid Argo 'goodbye' and made our way back to the tavern.

 **Aftermath:**

As we re-entered the tavern the bartender greeted us from behind his place at the bar. Despite the fact that we had been here just minutes ago, the NPC acted as if it was our first time coming in. It was just something you got used to in games. Constructs in programs such as this only ever acted one way.

"Greetings, young travelers. How can I be of assistance?"

"We'd like a couple of rooms, please," I requested.

"Why certainly, it's only 50 Cor per night and we have plenty of space available. Let me just get your keys…"

"Actually, make it just one room, if you don't mind," Kali spoke up suddenly. I looked at her questioningly, one eyebrow raised. She looked at me and blushed slightly. "If that's alright with you, of course."

"No...it's fine," I responded.

"Very well," the barkeep said handing me a single key. "That'll be 80 Cor for a full room. It's the first door upstairs on your left. Enjoy your stay."

As we headed upstairs and entered the room, Kali turned to me, "I hope you didn't get the wrong impression back there, I just didn't want to be alone right now."

"No, I understand. I wouldn't want to be alone either. I've been in your shoes before, and having someone else around made it bearable." I took a moment to look around the room. It was fairly spacious for a simple tavern rental. I expect that we were granted a larger space than someone by himself would have received. There was a simple front room with a couch and small fireplace. Next to that it had a table and chairs to dine from as well as a small attached kitchen. Tucked back in the corner was a bedroom with what would technically be a full sized bed. All-in-all, it was about the size of a decent one bedroom apartment. Normally there was no way a room this size would fit in this tavern, but this being a virtual world and all, some of the normal laws of physics didn't need to apply. Just change a couple of 0's to 1's in the variables of the code and, voila, you have a completely different space.

"Why don't you get comfortable while I whip up something to eat," I suggested to Kali. She looked a bit surprised as I moved towards the kitchen.

"You can cook?" she asked.

"I can indeed," I responded smiling. "It's nothing spectacular, but I raised my skill up a bit while I was after those guys. That way I didn't have to waste additional Cor on rations, could stay out longer, and work on my detection and tracking skills by hunting animals in the wild."

She seemed impressed by that and made her way to the couch to sit down. I set about going through my inventory to see what I had available to make. Luckily, I had just enough vegetables, spices, and meat on hand to whip up a nice little stew. It took me about ten minutes to get everything going. The cooking system in the game simplified much of what would normally be required to put a meal together. By the time I looked up from my work, I noticed that Kali had laid down and dozed off. Poor girl. She'd been through the ringer only a few hours ago, and I imagine she was quite exhausted from the whole ordeal. Surviving a brush with death tended to have that effect on a person. God knew I'd been there enough lately. The scene with the soldiers hadn't helped any either. As the stew cooked, I went to the bedroom and pulled back the sheets. I picked her up as gently as I could and carried her to the bed. I hoped that her armor wasn't too uncomfortable, but there wasn't anything I could do about that anyway. She was so out of it that she never stirred from the movement. After covering her up, I brushed a few stray hairs from her face and went back to the living room to finally sit down. I set a timer for the food and nodded off for a bit until it woke me. As I set the table for our dinner, I was oblivious as Kali entered the room from her nap.

"Something smells good," she remarked.

"Jesus!" I blurted out, nearly dropping the bowls I had in my hands.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized, giggling a little.

"It's alright," I said once my heart re-entered my chest. "It's what I get for not paying attention. Anyways, please sit. The food's ready." She sat in one of the chairs while I brought the pot to the table and served her. "Your timing was perfect."

"Well, something smelled good enough that I had to come see what it was," she replied smiling. "Thank you for moving me earlier, though it wasn't necessary."

"Nonsense, you needed the rest, and there was no way you were going to get it while I was banging around in the kitchen."

"If that was so, I'd have never fallen asleep to begin with."

"Meh, whatever," I said nonchalantly.

"Tell me," she said as I served up the food, "are you always so gentlemanly, or just around those who have nearly been killed?"

"I'd like to think I'm always like this, though sadly that wouldn't necessarily be the truth. This is a special occasion," I remarked as I put together a couple of bowls and sat down.

"Oh? What makes this so special? You could've left me as soon as you had gotten your revenge against those men. Why escort me back to town, stand up for me when the soldiers showed up to take us away, and now cook for me?" she asked rather pointedly. "You don't know me, so why risk more trouble to yourself?"

I looked at her for a moment without saying anything. She was right, I didn't know her at all. Bringing her here nearly got me arrested and thrown in with the rest of the criminals that were rotting away in the Black Iron Palace dungeons back on the first floor of Aincrad. Yet, despite all that, I stayed with her. There was only one reason for me to such a thing...

"It was the right thing to do," I said while staring at my food.

"That's it? It was the right thing to do?" she pressed. "No, there's got to be more to it than that…"

"Why does there have to be more to it?" I asked. "Can't someone just do the right thing for once and not be questioned for it? You make it sound like I have some sort of agenda going here."

"You're right, I apologize. Not very grateful for someone to be questioning their rescuer like this, when they have no reason to."

"Look," I said putting down my spoon and staring her in the eye, "I know this is a difficult time for you right now. I'm sure with all that's happened that you are a little short on trust for those around you that you aren't familiar with, but I promise you that I'm not looking for anything from you. I'm not expecting any sort of payment from you, nor am I looking to take advantage of your situation. I've been in a similar situation as you in the past. Multiple times, actually. At first I lost two dear friends to bad luck and the monsters of this world. At the time I had my best friend, as well as another, there to support me through that. Later, I lost my best friend to those player-killers that were after you and your late friend. I understand the loss, and frankly I wouldn't have still been here if not for my ex-girlfriend who just happened to be stuck in this hell hole with me. It was a dark time for me and I would've probably killed myself long ago, if not for her caring and support."

"I see," she said quietly. "So where is she now? Please tell me she wasn't killed as well."

"No, she's fine. Or at least she was when I left her some weeks ago."

"Why did you leave? Wait, don't answer that, it's your business not mine," she shook her head at asking such a personal question.

"It's ok. We've been apart for a few years before reuniting here in Aincrad. I imagine had we not been under such duress here, we'd hardly have encountered each other," I surmised. "The history between us isn't the best, but once you find yourself in a life or death situation, you tend to put such trivial things aside for the sake of survival. However, she couldn't force herself to go with me when I decided to seek vengeance for Brian's death, and I could accept that. I would never have let her, anyways. Brian was my friend's name, by the way. So we went our separate ways. I had encouraged her to join with the Knights of the Blood or one of the other guilds trying to clear the game, since she had always been a powerful player in the past. I knew she'd fit in well with them and likely make a difference for those stuck here.

"Back to the point, I just couldn't stand by and watch you suffer as I once had. Especially without anyone around to look after you. I realize I barely know you, but you seem to be a good person."

"And you think I might go and kill myself, now that I lost my friend and am alone?" she asked looking questioningly at me.

"I don't presume to know what you plan to do, but I sincerely hope not. God knows there's been enough loss in this game so far. I just know that I wanted to make sure you were ok before I moved on."

"Hmm… Very well, I accept you answer...and welcome your company," she said smiling to put me at ease. We spent the rest of the meal in silence. Afterwards we cleaned up together before sitting down in front of the fireplace to relax. During that time I noticed she still looked haggard, so I urged her back to bed. At first she resisted stubbornly, but soon reconsidered and made her way to the bed.

"Will you be joining me? The bed's certainly big enough. " she asked while scrolling through her menu and changing into casual clothes. It then dawned on her what exactly she had just said. Her eyes went wide, and she froze in place staring at me. I couldn't help but chuckle. "I mean… Just to sleep in. Not like...together, together."

"I'm good out here, this couch is plenty comfortable," I assured her. "Besides, it wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me to so easily invite myself into your bed, now would it?" I asked with a smirk.

She scowled at me, "Yes, of course. Though technically, it's your bed. You payed for the room, remember."

"True, but you are my guest. And before you argue with me anymore, know that I get to make the rules in MY room. Now off with you and rest well," I pressed. She frowned at me choosing to stay on the couch, but offered no more resistance as she went to lie down. I changed into something more comfortable as well and rested on the couch. It wasn't long before I fell asleep. It seemed that the day had finally caught up with me and demanded payment. It was peaceful for once. I wasn't haunted by the faces of those who I had lost. Nor was I submitted to the maniacal visages of those who I'd finally caught up with and put down. Unfortunately, it didn't last long.

Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, I was startled awake by a scream. As I jumped up and pulled out my katana, triggering my _Wakatsu_ sword skill, while looking for the source of the trouble. I quickly realized it came from the bedroom and rushed in to find Kali sitting up clutching her knees to her chest, crying and rocking back and forth. A nightmare, I was sure. I deactivated the skill and put the weapon away while moving over to sit next to her on the bed. Wrapping my arms around her, I shushed her as a parent would a distressed child. She pressed her head into my shoulder and continued to cry. I could feel a dampness forming on my shirt from her tears. Placing my chin on the top of her head, I just held her and did my best to comfort her. When she had calmed down some, she pulled away and looked at me while sniffling and wiping away her tears.

"Bad dream?" I asked. She nodded but didn't say anything. I scooched into the bed and sat with my back against the headrest. Taking the queue, she slid back over and rested against me while I held her again. "It's ok, you're safe now. Just rest." She sobbed a bit more and shook a bit, but over time she settled down and relaxed.

"Thank you for being here," she whispered to me, before falling back to sleep. I sat there and just comforted her while she rested. Kristen had done the same for me in the past, and it had always helped, if even just a small bit. After a while, I dozed off too. This time we both slept peacefully. As late morning rolled around, I woke to find that Kali had shifted to the point where she was lying in my lap. It put her head precariously close to somewhere she needn't be, so I tried to shift myself out from under her as gently as I could. I got about halfway out when she woke up. As she sat up sleepily and took stock of her surroundings, I got up and headed out to the front room, both to give her some privacy and see what I had available to make for breakfast. Once I saw that there wasn't really enough in my inventory to make a full meal, I suited up and headed for the door to go shopping for what I needed.

As I reached for the door, Kali called out from the doorway of the bedroom with a look of concern, "Where are you going?"

"Relax, I'm just headed out to pick up a few things for breakfast. I'll be back soon, so just take it easy until I return," I told her with a smile. She nodded after yawning and padded back into the room.

I made my way to the shops around town seeking out a good place to purchase something for us to eat. I was able to round up some eggs, potatoes, mushrooms and spices. The only thing I was missing was a protein. I knew we were stuck inside a virtual world and building such a proper meal wasn't necessary, but I still planned to eat accordingly. I didn't want to become so lost in here that I forgot what awaited me outside. And besides, only cooking proper recipes helped to build the skill up. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to locate the particular cut of meat I was looking for, so I ventured out of town. There was a nearby location where I could hunt a hog or two to get the pork slices I needed for some bacon. After about twenty minutes of hunting, I was ready to head back and prepare our meal. I entered the tavern and approached the door to my room. I knocked lightly to announce my return before letting myself in. At first, it looked as if the place were empty. However, I was able to make out a voice coming from the bedroom. Odd though; it was a male's voice, and one I didn't recognize. As I walked quietly to the doorway and looked inside, I saw Kali sitting cross legged on the bed with a small diamond-shaped item hovering above her outstretched hand. I thought someone was speaking to her through the device, but realized it was a recording when she didn't respond to it.

"...and I'm sure you will do well here. You were always so strong in the past. I know we were never going to be together, but I just wanted to let you know how much I cared for you. Now that I'm gone, I want you to focus on getting out of here. Whether that means you join the front lines and fight your way free or settle down in a safe zone and wait out this storm, it doesn't matter to me. Just survive and make it home. Please do that for me. Well, my time's about up, so take care of yourself and perhaps I'll see you again someday in another life."

As the recording ended, Kali began to sob quietly. I left the doorway, trying not to disturb her. Back in the kitchen, I set to working on breakfast. After a few moments she joined me there, eyes still red and puffy from crying. I acted like I hadn't noticed.

"How much of that did you hear?" she asked.

Knowing that my ruse hadn't worked, I just shook my head. "It doesn't matter. It's your business, not mine. Though I will say that he's right. You should do whatever it takes to survive this mess."

"He wasn't my boyfriend, in case you were wondering. Just a good friend I met playing online games," she explained.

"I wasn't, to be honest," I replied while continuing to cook. She watched me work for a few minutes in silence. As I served up the meal and we sat to eat, she looked up at me.

"So you think I should just sit back and hide until this is over?"

"I think you should do whatever you feel is the right thing to do," I said between bites of bacon. I was surprised how much it actually tasted like the real thing. The food creation system in this game was amazing. "If settling down in one of these towns is what you want to do, then by all means, go for it. I wouldn't hold it against you. Hell, I've even considered it myself. But if you wanted to go and fight for your freedom, feel free to do that too. It's completely your choice. You are your own person, and no one has the right to tell you what you should or shouldn't do." She mulled over what I said for a few moments before nodding and going back to her meal.

"Thank you for cooking again. It's really good."

"I'm glad it's to your liking. It's one of the simpler recipes you can learn," I said as I pulled up the list of what I was capable of making. It wasn't exactly comprehensive, but it was coming along. Each meal I prepared helped to further advance the skill, and I had even gained another level in it from this one.

 **Understanding:**

After we finished, Kali volunteered to clean everything up as her payment for me cooking. I sat on the couch and took stock of my inventory and planned my next move. As I hadn't really expected to survive hunting down Brian's attackers, I was at a loss as where to go next. I could try to raise my level and join the front lines, but that would be one hell of a long haul. Last I heard, players were already clearing levels in the late fifties or early sixties now. I was sure I needed at least twenty to thirty levels to even be competitive around those areas. Before I knew it, Kali had finished up her task and joined me. I was so lost in deep thought that I hadn't noticed her sitting down.

"Hey, you ok?" she asked waving a hand in front of my face. I blinked and shook my head to bring me back to the present.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking, is all."

"What about?" she pressed.

"Just trying to figure out my next move. I hadn't really thought this far ahead when I set out a few weeks ago," I explained.

"You didn't expect to survive, you mean," she said. It wasn't a question. I nodded and looked down at my hands.

"I had thought that I would have died in my battle with those responsible for my friend's death. That way I wouldn't have to continue living with the knowledge that he and the others were gone from my life. Hell, I never thought I'd actually be able to kill someone at all. Yet, when I found you and your friend in trouble, I couldn't stand by and let you be killed too."

"Well, you were certainly impressive out there. I don't know anyone who would willingly go 4v1. Where did you learn to fight like that?" she asked.

"I didn't really. I acted purely on instinct, I guess. I mean, I was never one for pvp content in the past. I could never keep up or anticipate an opponent's move. That was completely out of character for me," I commented. She stared at me for a few seconds, dumbfounded. I shared the feeling, as I reflected on what had transpired the previous day.

"So...have you decided on our next course of action?" she asked. I looked at her confused.

"Uh, 'our' next course of action?" I questioned her, wondering if that was how she really meant to say or if it was just a slip of the tongue.

"Yes, 'our' next step," she clarified. "I'd prefer to party up with you for a while, if that's ok. After all, I owe you for all you've done for me. And like I said the other day, I'm not really keen on the idea of going it alone right now. This world has become much more dangerous as of late. I figure it would be in our best interest if we watched each other's back out there."

"I appreciate the offer, but it's not necessary. I don't want anything from you. Besides, if I'm to be honest here, I did it for myself as much as I did it for you. I mean no offense by that, it's just the truth," I explained holding up my hands.

"I understand that, but weren't you the one who was lecturing me about needing support through all of this?" she countered.

"Kali, are you sure about this? You don't even know me. Hell, you've seen me kill someone in cold blood, and without remorse. Are you sure that that is someone you need to be hanging around?" I pressed.

"You're right, I have seen you kill people, but it was justified. Or at least as far as I'm concerned, it was. And ever since then, you've been nothing but kind and sincere." She pegged me with a hard stare that made me slightly uncomfortable. "Tell me, why are you so determined to leave me alone. Or at least why you don't want anyone around you?" I took a moment and thought of Mike and Luke. They were dead and I was powerless to help them. I had promised to keep Brian from befalling the same fate, yet I failed there too. I pushed Kristen away, and I was about to do the same with Kali. I didn't want to be the cause of another innocent person's death, or at least guilty of the inability to save them.

"It's simple," I said quietly, looking down at my hands as I wrung them together. "I don't want to witness the death of another person I care about." She rocked back at that, eyes widening a bit and blushing slightly. "Wait...that came out wrong. I mean, I don't want to see anyone else die who doesn't deserve to. You seem like a good person, and I hate for anything bad to happen to you," I quickly added. Things got quiet for a couple of minutes, though it felt like a lifetime. Why did I have to go and say it like that? I barely knew this girl and here I was saying I cared for her. Not really the thing to say at a time like this. I wasn't even sure what I was feeling. It was probably just the excitement of all that had happened. Though, to be honest, it was nice having someone around that I didn't have a complicated history with. The room felt close just then and I wanted to get up and leave. Yet, before I could make a move to do so, Kali reached out and gently laid her hand on mine, stopping me from wringing them any further.

"It's ok, you don't need to worry about it. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't feel some sort of attachment to you as well. I don't quite know what it is. Maybe it's just the adrenaline of a near death experience working me over, or the stress of the situation affecting me. Whatever it is, I don't really care. All I know right now is that I'd like to continue to stay with you for a while. I feel safe here. And from what I've seen of you so far, I have a hard time believing that your friends perished because of anything you did or did not do. I'd be willing to put money on it being outside forces, crappy timing, or just plain bad luck. For instance, take your friend who was killed by those murderers. That happened because of them, not you. They were responsible for his death. Who could've possibly known that people would sink to such depths at a time like this. You would figure that everyone would be working together to get out of here, not trying to take advantage of those around them. So it's fine, really," I sighed in defeat. There was just no winning with this girl.

"Why do you have to make sense, and put me at such ease?" I complained, though only halfheartedly. She smiled then, and I couldn't help but find it comforting, even if there was a touch of smugness to it. Women… "Alright, if you want to stay so badly, then be my guest. But, if you come to regret it, don't say I didn't try to warn you."

"Oh, yes sir!" she said, snapping a short salute at me. I frowned at her, causing her to giggle a bit.

"Now then, onto business," I said getting back to my original line of thought. "I was thinking of grinding my way up to the levels of the Assault Teams on the front lines. With my current gear, I'm sure I'm well behind the curve and have my work cut out for me. What about you? How do you feel about working up to joining the front lines?"

"Well, I'm sure I'm way behind too. With everything being what it is, I hadn't really been pushing my limits. I was too afraid to before," she said looking towards the wall. "Leo, the person I was with before, was not a very strong player so we steered clear of battles we thought would be too difficult for us."

"That's perfectly understandable. I'd rather be safe than sorry, to coin the old phrase," I agreed. "Why don't we start simple and work on your skills around here a bit, and then once you're comfortable, we'll move up the next few floors? From there we can focus on gaining levels and rounding out our gear."

"Alright, I'm with you," she said jumping up and donning her gear. From there we made our way out of the tavern and to the local shops to stock up on any items we would need for the road ahead. As we traveled out of the town to hunt down some monsters spawn points, I couldn't help but feel a bit excited. It was good to be on the move with a plan for the future again. Even though my friends weren't here with me, I'm sure they would approve of where I was headed. After all, had the situation been reversed, I would have wanted them to move on and survive this mess. I knew they would want the same for me. And besides, I wasn't alone in this world. I had Kali to look out for now. I only hoped that I would be more successful in keeping her alive.

 **Complications:**

"Switch out!" I yelled after deflecting a blow from the enemy lizardman and leaving him open for a counterattack.

"Right," Kali breathed as she shot forward slashing into the gap I had created in our foe's defenses. The lizardman staggered back a couple of steps, recoiling from the hit. Once it recovered, it came back at her activating a _Power Attack_ skill intending to exact revenge. However, she leapt back anticipating the blow and allowing me to rush in with my _Hangeki_ skill and repel the strike. I used the momentum of the blow to whip my katana around my head in an umbrella-like maneuver and activate my own _Wakatsu_ skill to cleave him in two. After a moment of stillness, the creature burst apart into particles and disappeared before us.

After gathering our experience and Cor from the fight, we decided to take a break and head back to town for the evening. We had been at it for a few months now. During that time, Kali had gained several levels and we had finally gotten enough Cor to upgrade her gear to something more respectable. Our time together also saw us becoming a true force to be reckoned with. Our teamwork in combat was reaching the point where we barely had to communicate with each other in order for us to know what to do next. Before I knew it, we were venturing higher and higher within the floors of Aincrad to fight stronger foes and gather additional amounts of exp and coin. We were becoming a nigh unstoppable force, and were quickly catching up to the Assault Teams on the front lines.

We were also becoming quite close as well. Whenever we stopped to rest for the evening, we only ever rented a single room. If there was only one bed, we typically shared it as well. So far we had stayed away from anything promiscuous. Hell, we hadn't even kissed. That was fine by me, as I wasn't in any rush to complicate matters. Besides, I prefered to stay focused on getting out of this game first. Once we had accomplished that, I could allow myself to look to that kind of future. I found I was quite comfortable with her around, though. She was easy to talk to and beautiful to boot. It was nice to have found a shining star within the darkness of this world. I only hoped that I might be able to see it in the real world sometime.

As we teleported to the local floor's town to layover for the night, I came to realize that I wasn't feeling well. Checking my HUD for any sort of status ailment, I began to worry when I couldn't find anything. Slowly, the slight nausea turned into a dull pain in my abdominal area. Kali noticed the grimace I was wearing and put her hand on my chest to stop me.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she inquired a look of concern crossing her features.

"I'm not sure. I'm experiencing some pain around here," I responded gesturing to the area. She frowned as she pondered it.

"You don't show as suffering from poison or anything that I can see."

"I know, and I don't show anything as wrong either," I said. I straightened up and placed a hand on her shoulder reassuringly, "I'm sure I'll be fine. Let's just turn in for the night." She let the subject go, but I could tell she was still concerned. Neither of us had seen or heard of this happening before, so who was to say what might happen. Due to where the pain emanated from, I had an idea, and it wasn't a pleasant thought.

As we rented our room for the evening, I sat down on a sofa to try to relax. Kali was working on putting something together for dinner, giving me the night off. While her cooking level was not on par with my own, I was nevertheless grateful for it. The pain still had not subsided, and I was growing increasingly worried. I was growing more and more sure of what was the culprit was and if I was correct, I was in serious trouble.

I was suddenly hit by a sharp, stabbing pain that doubled me over in place. I cried out while wrapping my arms around my stomach in an effort to ease my suffering. Kali's head snapped up from her preparations and she rushed over to me. I laid over on the sofa and began to sweat and dry heave, which I didn't even know was possible here. I could vaguely make out Kali asking what she could do to help, but I couldn't respond. Just catching my breath was trying. Mistaking my ailment as game produced, she began to pull out health and antidote potions. I batted them away as I knew they would be of no use here.

Once I was able to recover enough to form words, I peeked at her and tried to smile between clenched teeth. "It's...ok. There's nothing...you can do t-to help here…"

"What the hell is happening to you?" she asked becoming more and more worried.

I took a deep breath and focused on calming myself between waves of pain. "I...have a health condition that seems to be coming back...to haunt me here. In high school I had an emergency...liver transplant during my sophomore year. Mine failed...for unknown reasons."

Kali's mouth dropped open in disbelief, "Oh my god. Is...is it going out on you again?"

"More than likely, I've gone too long...without my medication to keep my body from attacking the replacement that was given to me." Another wave of pain washed over me again. I shut my eyes tightly as I waited it out. I felt Kali place her hand on my forehead, and it gave me something to focus on. As it subsided, I added to my explanation. "You see...even though the liver I received was a match, my...body still sees it as a foreign object and...tries to attack it. My medication suppresses...my immune system to keep that from happening."

"Then shouldn't someone be giving you this medication on the outside?" she asked.

"I'm sure they are, but maybe there's been a complication of some kind," I stated grimacing as another wave came. I noticed this was upsetting Kali quite a bit. She was trying to blink back tears as she was unable to do anything to help me. I reached up to stroke her face and wipe a tear from her cheek. It was surprisingly warm, despite not being her actual face. Closing her eyes and leaning into my hand, she smiled lightly.

"It's ok," I assured her. "I'll...be fine." I knew she wasn't convinced, but she nodded anyways. I couldn't believe this was happening. After all that we had been through in this damn game, after all we'd survived and come back from the loss of, was this how it was going to end for me? Was I really behind on anti-rejection medications so much that I was going into failure again? Or had something else happened to threaten me? Facing such a possibility was overwhelming.

It was bad enough to have to face our likely deaths inside this virtual world, but having to deal with the fact that we could be killed from the outside, beyond our control was worse. How could you possibly prepare yourself to deal with that. I wanted to scream and cry. I wanted to break something; to do anything to feel like I was in control of my fate, but I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. I tried to smile at Kali and reassure her, but I couldn't. I was powerless. As I laid there, another wave of pain swept over me. This one was the strongest yet. My vision greyed out. I tried to look around and see my surroundings, but I couldn't. I knew my eyes were open, I could feel myself straining them in order to get my vision to return yet nothing would come. Was this what it was like to die?

 **Recovery:**

Time got away from me. At some point I must have passed out. When I came to and opened my eyes, it was dark. I blinked multiple times to try to clear my vision and focus on something, anything really. I tried moving my head and found that I could. It was painful, but I took that as a good sign. Pain meant you were still alive. As I waited for my vision to focus, I attempted to sit up. It was difficult and my movements felt sluggish, like I was submerged in liquid and fighting against it. I managed to prop myself up on my elbows and glanced around. Finally, I was able to make out my surroundings. It was the bedroom of the room Kali and I had been staying in when all of this went down. Somehow, I had made it to the bed in our room. I also realized that I was having a hard time seeing because it was dark out and the room had very little light in it. I strained to sweep my feet out over the side of the bed and sit up. The movement was painful, but it was much less than I had experienced before. It felt more like the recovery period after an extremely intense workout, than what I had gone through when my liver was failing. I wobbled uncertainly for a moment, and figured it would be best to lay back down and rest some more. I was still alive, and that was all that mattered for the moment. I don't know what had happened on the outside, but I was still here in Aincrad. That had to be a good sign, or at least I hoped it was.

As I eased myself back onto my back on the bed, I glimpsed a bit of movement in my peripheral vision. It was Kali, asleep next to me on the bed. Seeing her there, it began to dawn on me just how much she made me happy. We had seen each other through much these last few months, and I couldn't picture my life here without her now. I figured I should tell her how I felt while I still had a chance. I would only get so many chances, and it felt like I was already running on borrowed time. In fact, this could just be the calm before the storm, for all I knew. I could be hopped up on morphine while my body gave out, and I disappeared from this world for good. I sincerely hoped not, because then I'd leave her behind to face this world alone. I would have broken yet another promise, again. I couldn't stand the thought of that, so I did my best to push it from my thoughts. Instead of dwelling on that possibility, I focused on Kali's sleeping form. I memorized the lines of her face and how her hair flowed about, studied her breathing patterns, and observed the occasional twitch of her limbs while she dreamed. I wondered what she dreamed of. Was it a place far from here? Was she somewhere having fun with friends or family? Hell, I didn't even know her real name, I realized. Or how old she was. With our avatar's reflection of ourselves, I was sure she was at least in her mid twenties, but I couldn't be for sure. Looks can be deceiving, and I was always told I looked far younger than I actually was. I guess it just never really mattered before. We had fallen in so well together that those things didn't really matter all that much.

She breathed in deeply then, letting it out in a long, full body sigh. I reached across to brush a stray hair out of her eyes lightly brushing her cheek in the process. It elicited a small moan from her, and I couldn't help but smile. I continued to brush her cheek as I watched her sleep. After a bit, she slowly began to open her eyes. I pulled my hand back as she stretched and sat up and looked around lazily. When her vision fell over me, she stopped and just looked at me. I couldn't tell if she saw that my eyes were open, but she clearly knew that something was different about me. Laying back down on her side, she continued to watch me. As her head hit the pillow, our gazes met. Her eyes went wide as she realized I was awake.

"Hey you," I said quietly to her. She didn't say anything at first and just continued to stare dumbly at me. Finally, she spoke up.

"You...you're awake?"

"So it would seem," I responded smiling at her.

"This isn't a dream is it?" she asked, though I wasn't sure if it was directed at me or not.

"No, I'm pretty sure it isn't…" I got out before she lunged at me and buried me in a big, strong hug. Despite the soreness, it still felt good so I hugged her back with as much strength as I could muster. It wasn't much though, as I still felt really fatigued from my previous episode. She began to shake as she held onto me, and I felt a warmth start to gather on my shoulder.

"Hey, it's ok now," I tried to assure her.

"I didn't think I'd get to see you again," she whispered to me. "You were here physically, but you weren't moving or anything. I didn't know what was happening, and was afraid that I would wake up one morning to find you gone." That got my attention.

"How long was I like that?" I asked her. She finally let up and sat back to wipe away the tears from her eyes.

"Three days, going on a fourth," she said. "I was so worried, I didn't know what to do." I pushed myself up to a sitting position, wincing a bit throughout the process. Once there, I reached out to take her face in my hands.

"You stayed with me, and that's all I could ask for," I said in all seriousness. She lunged forward again, but not for a hug. Wrapping her arms around me, she enveloped me in a long, deep kiss. I was surprised by it at first, but melted into it quickly as I had been planning to do the same to her. She just beat me to it. It tasted sweet, despite the fact that it wasn't her actual lips. All thoughts and concerns left my mind in that moment. My only focus was her and hanging onto this moment for as long as possible. When we finally broke away to catch our breath, she looked at down sheepishly as she spoke.

"You don't know how long I've wanted to do that," she said. I laughed lightly.

"Me too," I said. Dawn was just beginning to break outside the rooms window. It bathed the room in a soft yellow and highlighted Kali's features brilliantly. It was then that I started to realize a feeling that had been growing in me for some time now. "Don't freak out on me now, but I think I'm falling for you, my dear." She smiled and laid down against my chest.

"Oh, you too huh? Good, I was beginning to think I was the only one." she teased.

We rested there for a while and dozed off for a bit. Later that morning, I was stirred awake by her moving off of me to get up and stretch. As I got up to do the same, I noticed the soreness had abated quite a bit. I only hoped that was a good sign. I noticed Kali was dressed only in her bra and panties, so I quickly averted my eyes in case she hadn't realized. Normally, she would have a nightgown on as well. This was the first time I'd seen her so revealing. I also realized that I was only in boxers and an undershirt as well. Funny, I didn't remember ever dressing down so much. Taking notice of me looking at myself, Kali filled me in.

"I manipulated your hand to use your menu. I wasn't sure how long you'd be out so I tried to make you as comfortable as possible. Don't worry, I was good and didn't peek at anything I shouldn't have," she said winking at me. I held up my hands and shook my head.

"I guess I'm going to have to sleep with one eye open from now on, lest I find myself getting up and walking outside naked," I jested with her. She grinned with an evil twinkle in her eye. It melted into a look of concern as she walked over and lightly grasped my arm.

"How are you feeling?"

"Slightly sore, but good. No abdominal pain to speak of," I answered testing my range of motion and poking lightly at the suspect area. Everything seemed to be working right.

"That's a good thing, yes?" she asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm going to choose to believe that it IS a good thing. Nothing else can really be done," I said. Truth be told, all I could do was carry on and hope I didn't just drop dead at some point. Though I wasn't going to tell Kali that. She'd been through enough the past few days already. I'd rather us enjoy whatever time we might have left together, than burden her with the prospect of me disappearing at whatever time. "Anyways, now that I'm back vertical, shall we carry on?"

"With everything that just happened, do you really think that's a good idea?" she asked frowning at me.

"I don't see why not. We're still stuck here, so what's there to do but pick up where we left off?" She pondered it a moment, clearly not buying the idea of jumping right back into the thick of battle. "Tell you what," I said trying to ease the mood. "Why don't we get something to eat and talk about it later?"

"That sounds good," she said as she changed into some casual clothes. I did the same and we left the inn to stroll through town until we came to a cafe that looked good. As we ate, her expression lit up as she came to some sort of conclusion. I looked at her quizzically and waited for her to say something. "I know someplace we can go. I've been meaning to check it out for some time now, but we never had a chance to before."

"Alright, where did you want to go?" I asked trying to figure out where she might be referring to. That devilish grin settled over her features again, and I knew she was up to something. Instead of answering me, she just winked at me and kept eating her dessert.

 **Flower Garden:**

Once we finished up, she took my hand and began leading me towards the center of town where the teleport gate stood. As we were already partied up, she was able to access the portal options and set a destination for the both of us. She told me not to look while she did so, and while my eyes were closed I felt the typical slight weightlessness as I was being teleported to a new location. When I opened my eyes, it took me a moment to realize what floor we were on. After looking around and seeing the abundance of flowers throughout town, it dawned on me. This was the town of Floria on the 47th floor. This floor was well known for its garden theme, as almost the entire level was covered in gentle rolling hills covered in flowers of all kinds. It's no wonder the level had been nicknamed the "Flower Garden" by the players. Point of fact, it was also the premier hang out for in-game couples. Indeed, wherever you looked around town, you could find happy pairs wandering about enjoying the scenery as well as each other's company.

"Oh my god, it's so beautiful," Kali exclaimed as we walked about. I had to agree with her on that. The place was well laid out with flower beds of different colors broken up only by the red brick walkways. In the main square, these beds bordered around a towered water fountain that sprayed out its top to create a sort of water dome as it fell down into the main body of the fountain. Petals of all different colors floated around us in the gentle breeze that flowed through the area, as well as the sweet aroma of the flowers' pollen. I stooped down and picked a white rose-like flower and stuck it in Kali's hair right above her left ear. She smiled and adjusted it so it wouldn't fall out as we walked further. Our path took us out of the main town area and across plains of wildflowers. This area had numerous mobs, but they were too far below our level to be much of a threat. Occasionally, we would take the time to actually fight, but it was more for fun than out of necessity.

As we crested a small hill, I noticed a pair of players up ahead of us on a bridge over a small stream. They seemed to be facing off with about eight or so other players. As I scrutinized the goings on in front of us, it quickly became clear that the larger group was holding up the pair. I also noticed that all but two of the larger group had orange cursors. I cursed under my breath and halted our progress. As Kali noticed what was happening, she looked to me uncertainly. I hesitated for a moment, knowing full well what was about to transpire. Equipping my katana, I prepared to charge down the hill to help those who were under siege. Taking a cue from my demeanor, Kali readied her weapon as well. As we took off down the hill, I saw one of the pair step forward to face off against the superior force. He was dressed in what looked to be a long black coat of some kind with matching shirt and pants. Within a second, the group charged him and began to cut and hack at him relentlessly. My eyes widened at what was happening, and my charge became a full on sprint, though I knew I would never make it in time. Yet, something completely unexpected happened. After all of the attacks the single individual took, he was somehow still standing. Even more confusing was the fact that he hadn't bothered to raise his own weapon in his defense.

As his attackers realized that their assault was useless, they halted in their tracks. Then the black swordsman drew his weapon and held up an object for the group to see. He appeared to be speaking to them and they began to back off. Whatever he said, they didn't like it. Yet a single member of the assailants, who I assumed was their leader that had hung out in the back while the rest attacked, was undaunted by what this swordsman was saying. In response, the black swordsman rushed forward at near blinding speed and had his weapon at the leader's throat. As Kali and I got close enough to make out more details, we saw that the leader had dropped her weapon, and they all seemed to be surrendering. Then the entire group teleported away using a crystal the swordsman had produced earlier, leaving just him and the person he had left on the bridge.

Finally arriving on scene, I immediately approached the man in black. He was decently young, perhaps in his mid teens. There was also something uncannily familiar about him, but I couldn't place it. When he noticed us running up to him and the young girl he was with, he drew his sword once more. I slowed and came to a stop about ten feet away and sheathed my own blade. Kali followed suit and let me take the lead.

"Hey, are you two ok?" I asked holding up my hands to show I was not a threat. "We saw you guys from the hill over there and thought you needed some assistance." He took stock of us for a moment before returning his sword to the scabbard on his back.

"Yeah, we're fine. Thanks for the effort though," he said. I noticed that the young girl he seemed to be escorting was partially hidden behind him. She was young, perhaps only a year of two past ten. Her light brown hair was tied into two tails by two red ring baubles that accented her red eyes. She wore a red robe with a short black skirt, and had a dagger strapped to her back. After hearing the swordsman's voice, I realized I knew him from somewhere but I just couldn't place it. I had to find out, it was bothering me.

"Excuse me, but do I know you from somewhere? I could have sworn we have met before…"

"Huh? Perhaps...let me think…" he responded. After a couple of seconds, he snapped his fingers and pointed at me. "We met on floor one. You were in that really bad fight with the giant and some kobolds. I lent a bit of a hand. That was all." I was stunned. How could I not remember that right off the bat? This guy had saved my life when that giant had had me dead to rights after Mike and Luke's deaths. If not for him, I wouldn't have been here today or met Kali. I had been so shocked at my friends' passing, that I barely looked at him let alone had the chance to thank him. Taking stock of him now, I noticed that his neat black hair and eyes complimented his delicate facial features and showed off his young age well. The fact that he was so nonchalant about it struck me as a bit strange.

"Holy crap, that's right! You were the one who took out the giant before it could finish me off. You were amazing. My god, I never got to thank you for that," I said extending my hand now. He laughed lightly and shook my hand.

"It was nothing, really. I'm just glad I made it in time." It was funny, he seemed to be a bit uncomfortable with the thanks and praise. "I don't think we ever officially met, I'm Kirito. And this is Silica. We were just coming back from getting her the Pneuma Flower from the Hill of Memories."

"I see, well I'm Yautja and this is Kali," I said completing the introductions. Kali stepped forward and shook Kirito and Silica's hands. I lightly bowed to the girl as she seemed a bit nervous still. Picking up on this, Kali pulled her aside and started up a conversation about the flower they had obtained. I took the moment to address Kirito more seriously. "I mean it, I wouldn't be here if not for you. You have my deepest thanks. If you ever need anything, you just have to ask," I told him and sent him a friend request.

"It's all good, I'm just glad you made it. A lot of people didn't," he said while accepting the request anyways. "How about the rest of your friends? Wasn't there another two with you?" I sighed and crossed my arms.

"My friend, Crow, didn't make it. Pk'ers got him a while back. I left Rabbit after that to hunt them down seek justice for him."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Did they end up in the Black Iron Palace prison, at least?" he asked.

"No, they didn't," I said flatly. Even to this day, just thinking about them angered me. I guess it showed on my face, as Kirito furrowed his brow. "So they're still at large, then?"

"Oh no, I put a stop to their ways when I caught up with them later. In fact, that's where I met Kali," I said looking over to where the girls were happily talking. Kali was whispering something to Silica and hooked a thumb over a shoulder towards where Kirito and I were standing. The two then broke out in laughter. I frowned for a moment before shaking my head and turning back to Kirito. Just looking at them put me as ease. "She was being attacked by the same people, so I acted and cut them down before they could kill again. Unfortunately, I was too late to save the person she had been traveling with at the time. We've been together ever since. It's been a hell of a journey," I explained.

"I'm glad you got the justice your friend deserved. Just be careful, taking a life like that is never a simple thing. It can leave a nasty scar," Kirito warned.

"I know. That's why I broke away from Rabbit. I wasn't going to take her with me down that road. I did what I did, and I won't deny it. However, I don't regret it either. If I hadn't stopped those monsters, who knows how many more people they would have hurt or killed. And in the end, not only did I help my friend rest in peace, I saved a life as well. One that I'm very happy to have saved. She's helped bring me back from a very dark place. As for scars, I already have plenty that I live with. What's one more?" I said in a joking tone. Kirito smiled, looking relieved at my explanation and lightened demeanor.

"Well then, I'm glad you're ok. Are you two going to stay around here now, or what?"

"We're taking a break from the grind up to the Assault Team's position, but I'm sure we'll be back at it soon," I answered him.

"Nice, maybe we'll see each other there then. I'm usually on the front lines somewhere. This was just a little side trip for me."

"Ah, so what was with those people earlier then?" I inquired.

"I was tracking them down. Seems they attacked and killed most of the players in a guild around here. The leader was asking for help in getting them sent to prison. I obliged him, while helping Silica get a hold of the Pneuma Flower," Kirito explained. Just then, the girls made their way over to us.

"Yautja, you need to leave Kirito alone now. They have something very important to take care of and they are on a deadline," Kali said giving me a hard stare. Taking the cue, I extended my hand to him once more.

"Alright, you take care, and hopefully we'll see you around."

"Yeah, sure," he said as we shook again. "Come on Silica, we should get going."

"Right!" she said, springing into action and bidding us 'goodbye.' Kirito waved, and the two made their way off towards town. We watched them go for a couple of minutes.

"She's adorable," Kali remarked with a smile.

"Yeah," I agreed absently while reflecting on my chat with Kirito. I meant what I said about Kali bringing me back from a dark place. To think, I spent weeks with nothing on my mind but death and vengeance. I had been out for blood, and nothing less would satisfy me. It was to the point that I didn't care if I killed myself in the process, as long as I got some sort of result. Hell, I was already broken. What more had I to lose? Yet, once I finally caught up with my quarry, the whole dynamic shifted as there was someone else facing down the same darkness that I was. I couldn't let that happen. And so I acted, and it ended up paying off in the end. I had found this beautiful person within this whole tragedy of a game. I regretted nothing of what I did, nothing at all.

"Hey, you ok?" Kali said, snapping me out of my haze.

"Yeah, never better," I replied smiling and taking her hand to make our way back to town. She obliged and we strolled back through the flower beds. This time, we made sure to avoid monster spawns. As we came into view of the outer square of Floria, Kali squeezed my hand.

"By the way, I'm Emilia. Emilia Weber, from Berlin, Germany and I'm twenty eight. I just thought you should know," she said suddenly.

"Very well, I'm Thomas Whitmore, thirty and from Houston Texas in the US. Though what brought this on?" I asked.

"American, huh? Guess I should have seen that one coming… Anyways, I figured we have spent so much time together and have become so close, that it's something you should know. You can still call me Kali if you'd like, though."

"Hey, what do you mean 'should have seen that one coming?'" I asked, faking a hurt look. She giggled.

"Nothing, love, nothing at all," she said impishly, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. I arched an eyebrow at her but said nothing as we headed back.

 **Guilded:**

We spent a few weeks just enjoying life and each other's company. We took the time to revisit previous floors of Aincrad to see the many sights they had to offer. One of our favorite places to walk through was the forest and lake filled 22nd floor. The area was sparsely populated by players and monsters alike, so it made for a peaceful and serene experience. Had we not still been stuck in this death game, it would have been perfect. I had even been out perusing the town shops looking for a ring for Kali. With where our relationship was headed, I felt in-game marriage was the next logical step. I wanted her to know just how much I had come to care for her, and if we somehow got out of this whole mess I vowed to track her down in the real world to finish what we had started here. Hell, we even had managed to buy a small cottage for us to live in on the 35th floor in the town of Mishe. The place was two story with timber frames filled by wattle and daub, and a shingled roof. It afforded us a nice and cozy place to spend our evenings while enjoying the city life.

It took me a while to find the perfect ring for her, but I finally came across the one in a jewelry shop on the 50th floor. I had told Kali that I was checking up on an old friend and pick up some information on how the Assault Teams were doing so I could slip away from her. We both very much wanted to get back on track and do our part in freeing us from this place. As I payed for the item and stored it away, I noticed a small group gathering out in the teleportation plaza. I wandered over to see what all the hubbub was about.

There, I saw a member of the Knights of the Blood in his bright white and red armor addressing local players. He was looking for those high enough in level and skill to join their ranks. He went on to explain how the upper levels were becoming more and more difficult to clear and that every able bodied player was needed to do their part in beating the game. As those here began to voice concerns with the dangers involved, the man seemed to take pride in mentioning that the Assault Teams hadn't lost a single member in a long time, due to excellent leadership and teamwork from his guild and their allies. That really caught my attention. If the top guilds had concocted a winning formula, there was hope that we'd make it out after all. But it sounded like they needed all the help they could muster. I took this to be good news. If the clearing guilds were banding together to take on the floor bosses, we should be able to finish off all of the remaining floors and actually get out of here. And last I heard, the Assault Teams had already broken into the lower 70 floors. This nightmare was almost over. I had to get back and tell Kali the good news!

As I teleported back to the gate of our home floor, I rushed home to find Kali inspecting her gear. We had recently agreed to get back in the field and continue raising our levels so we could join the front lines. Both of us had come to the conclusion that we very much wanted to make it out of here so that we could meet in the real world. However, the only way to do that was to step up and do our part in defeating the floor bosses still holding us hostage here.

"Hey sweetheart," I said greeting her as I walked in and placed a kiss on her cheek. She smiled and pressed lightly into me.

"How did your trip go?" she asked.

"It went well. It seems that things are well on track and that we may be getting out of here soon. The main clearing guilds are finally banding together to take down the floor bosses, and they've already made their way into the low 70's, floor-wise," I explained.

"That's great! Though I guess that means we need to step up our schedule if we want to be of any help."

"You're right," I assented. I had been thinking of joining one of the guilds for some time now, but had never broached the topic with her. We had our own way of doing things, and I wasn't sure if we really wanted to deviate from our method. Maybe now would be a good time to bring it up and see what she thought? "Listen, I was doing some thinking today," I started. "What would you think of joining one of the guilds? We could come in together and help bolster the effort to escape Aincrad, as well as garner the support of those already there. We wouldn't have to worry about being on our own anymore." She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me, frowning in thought.

"I've never really considered it, to be honest. We've always worked alone and kept to ourselves. If we were to join up, we would likely be subjected to whatever rules and regulations the guild had set up. We'd probably lose a lot of our freedom. Hell, they may even try to split us up…I'm not sure I'd be ok with that," she reasoned.

"I wouldn't have that anyway, me being the jealous type that I am," I said playfully eliciting a smile from her. "But in all seriousness, I think we should consider it. I'm not saying we have to follow their every whim; if they have unreasonable demands, we don't have to stay. But there is definitely something to be said for 'safety in numbers,' don't you think? As we get higher in levels, things will only get harder. Pretty soon I imagine it will become difficult, if not impossible, for solo'ers and pairs like us to proceed."

"No, I'm sure you're right," she agreed. "Alright, did you have a particular guild in mind?"

"I was thinking of the Knights of the Blood, actually," I suggested. "They're not that large, but supposedly have some of the strongest players in the game within their ranks. Apparently, their leader, Heathcliff, is so skilled that he's never lost more than half his life in a battle. Everyone there really seems to look up to him." Kali looked at her gear for a moment and sighed.

Looking back to me she said, "Alright, let's do it." That took an enormous weight off my shoulders. I hadn't really realized how badly I wanted us to join up. I just knew that this way, we would have others at our back to help us get through this mess. Maybe this time, things would finally turn out alright, and I wouldn't have to worry about losing another person I cared about.

After making our preparations, we ventured to the town of Granzam on floor 55. There we were able to locate the Knights of the Bloods' headquarters. The place was a huge steel tower of medieval design. A set of silver spears with flags stuck out over the main gate leading in. The flags were red with white and bronze swords adorning them. We took a moment to bask in it immensity before making our way inside to sign up. We were greeted by a pair of guards dressed in the typical white and red uniform befitting members of the guild. As we explained our intention to join up, we were led inside to meet with the leaders of the guild. Soon, we found ourselves standing in a circular chamber facing a group of three individuals who sat across from us at a large curved table. There was a seat for a fourth member, but it was currently vacant. The man seated in the center of the table was none other than the guild's founder himself, Heathcliff. Was was dressed in brilliant red armor with white highlights. It was a bit unusual, as it was reversed from the mostly white uniforms of everyone else. I suppose he was allowed to stand out from the others as he saw fit.

"Greetings, I am Heathcliff, the leader of the Knights of the Blood. I hear you two were looking to join our ranks," he announced.

"That's correct. I am Yautja, and this is Kali. We have been running as a pair for a while now, but figured it would be in our best interest to join a guild to make it through the upper floors," I said. "We've heard of your successes and figured this was the best place for us."

"Is that so?" Heathcliff asked amusedly. "While I appreciate your decision to join our guild, I must ask… in return for a place within our ranks, what can you offer us? We are always looking for gifted and useful individuals to help in our climb to the top floor. However, I cannot willingly accept those who would be a burden or of no use in these trying times." As I opened my mouth to respond to the man, he held up a hand to stay whatever I had to say. "Please, do not take what I have said as an insult. I'm sure you are both very capable players. We will just need to observe your skills in combat first, before we make a final judgement. I assume this is reasonable enough for you?" I looked to Kali and she nodded to me.

"Yes, that would be fine," I said to Heathcliff. I had already expected there would be some sort of test we would have to undergo before they would allow us to join. Whatever it was, I was ready. Heathcliff smiled in return before he shifted his gaze to address Kali.

"And what about you, miss? You've been quiet this whole time. What are your thoughts about joining my guild?" he asked her.

She took a moment before answering, while she considered her words. "I must admit that I have my reservations about joining. I've always been a solo player, or played only in small groups. With that, I have always enjoyed the freedom to choose my own fate and am reluctant to give it up in any way. I guess at this point, I would have you tell us exactly what we can be expected to do as members of the Knights of the Blood."

"Very well, that is a reasonable request. As members of the Knights of the Blood, you would be expected to fight to the best of your ability to protect those around you and clear a path through the floors of Aincrad. Our primary goal is to beat the boss on floor 100 and free everyone trapped within Sword Art Online. As representatives of our organization, you are expected to wear attire befitting our colors. We will, of course, provide you with this and can even have it customised to your exact specifications at a discounted cost to you. Aside from that, as long as you act in accordance with our simple rules of conduct, you are allowed your own freedom. When not fighting, attending meetings on strategy and boss raids, or working to raise your skills, you are free to go about your business."

"And would the two of us be allowed to remain together, or can we expect to be broken up and placed in different positions throughout your forces?" she pressed.

"If you two would prefer to remain together, then we can work with that as well. I imagine you two already have a method that works, or else you wouldn't be here," he said disarmingly. So far, he hadn't said anything that I could argue against. Perhaps this would work out after all.

"Then I'm in," Kali said glancing at me with a look of approval.

"Excellent, I look forward to hearing of your capabilities," Heathcliff said rising from his place at the table. The other three members, who had remained quiet throughout the interview, stood with him. "Now, I must excuse myself as I have other matters to attend to. My lieutenant, Daizen here, will see to your joining trial," he said gesturing to one of the members of his group. He was a heavy set man of average height with short black hair that receded along the front edges. Oddly enough, he seemed like he would be unaccustomed to any sort of actual combat. This was presented even more so as he awkwardly waddled around the table towards us as the rest of the men cleared the room.

"Greetings, and welcome to KoB. I am Daizen, the Head of Finances," he said with a heavy accent I couldn't place. "I'm sure you will fit in just fine around here. Please follow me and we will get you started." After glancing at each other, Kali and I followed the rotund man out into the hallway. As we proceeded to tail him throughout the headquarters, he began talking to us about how the guild came to be and its structure. I barely paid attention as I observed our surroundings. As we rounded a corner into a central courtyard, I caught a glimpse of a pair of guild members entering a doorway off to out left. I could have sworn one of them seemed familiar, but they disappeared before I could get a better look at them. Kali eyed me with a raised eyebrow but I just shrugged and kept walking. Whoever it was, I figured I'd see them again soon enough. The whole time, Daizen appeared oblivious to my musings. We passed through another section of the tower and entered a training field on its backside where numerous members were sparring with each other or training dummies. I nearly ran into the man as he stopped in front of me.

"...and here you will meet the man who will conduct your trial," he said. As if on cue, a tall, muscular man approached us. He had to easily be over six feet tall with a chiseled jawline and a scar across his left eye. He sported a military styled crew cut and was flicking with what seemed to be a toothpick back and forth in his mouth. He stopped a few feet away and looked Kali and I over with a steely gaze. Placing his hands on his hips, he turned to address Daizen.

"What's this then, more recruits?" he asked in a terse tone.

"That's correct. This is mister Yautja and miss Kali. They have come to join our glorious ranks," Daizen said gesturing towards us. He then turned to us and introduced the brick shit-house of a man standing before us. "And this is mister…" Before he could finish, the man interrupted him.

"I'm Tetsubo, and I am the Commander of the Vanguard. I'll be in charge of seeing what you two are made of and whether or not you have what it takes to join the Knights."

"Very well, mister Tetsubo, I leave them in your capable hands," Daizen said clearly a bit perturbed at being interrupted. He turned to us again, "Once you pass the trial, I will be happy to get you set up with your uniforms and living arrangements. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask any of the leaders around here." With that he set off back towards the inner tower. Tetsubo watched him disappear into the tower before addressing us further.

"He's a cowardly little pig of a man. Good thing he's good with numbers, or he'd have been out on his ass long ago. Now, are you ready for your trial?" Tetsubo asked.

"What can we expect from this trial?" I questioned him in return.

"We are going to clear a dungeon together so I can see you in action and gauge your abilities for myself. Normally, I'd have you give up your health and teleportation crystals to get as realistic a display as possible. However, it was decided that we would no longer do that due to a rather unfortunate situation not long ago."

"Wait, what happened?" Kali asked, a hint of concern creeping into her voice.

"It seems that one of our previous members was a turncoat for those bastards over at Laughing Coffin, who betrayed another couple of members of our guild that were on a similar trial run. He murdered the previous Vanguard Commander and nearly killed another before he was stopped by our Second-in-Command. Since then, we have had to reevaluate our security procedures." Kali and I looked at each other in alarm. Laughing Coffin had become the largest known player-killer guild around. "Now don't you worry. I'm not so gullible as our previous commander, so you'll be safe with me. Also, this dungeon should be a breeze at your levels. I'll simply be observing your tactics and teamwork. Just take the trial seriously and try to keep crystal usage to a minimum, and you'll do fine."

 **West Mountain:**

We left the town of Granzam and headed in a westernly direction. It was odd how much the terrain on this floor varied. While the town itself was bordered by hilly grass fields, once you ventured out you found yourself surrounded by desolate wastelands devoid of vegetation and riddled with canyons. As you went further west, you saw the region change yet again to become fields covered in snow and ice. These fields were broken up by snow capped mountain ranges that extended as far as the eye could see. During our journey, Tetsubo explained to us that we were essentially on our own. He wouldn't step in unless we were in dire circumstances. That way he could see what we were capable of, and how we reacted to any trouble that might arise. However, he hinted at the fact that once we reached the local boss he'd likely join in the fray.

As we pushed on, we encountered a number of monsters on our route. Within the desolate canyons, we found large scorpions and hyenas as well as giant lizards to assail us. Luckily we were high enough in level, that they posed little challenge. Nevertheless, we endeavored to show what we had to offer. We even extended engagements a bit longer than we usually would just to show our abilities to Tetsubo. He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he seemed pleased with our execution of Switches and other combat maneuvers. As we broke midday, we stopped to rest and have something to eat. I had brought along a couple of prepared meals for Kali and myself, though Tetsubo was on his own. He didn't seem to mind, as he had his own rations at hand. I did notice him eyeing our sandwiches with what looked to be a bit of a jealous gaze. I smiled inwardly, but said nothing.

Once we had finished, we set out again. As we crossed into the frozen tundras of the west, Tetsubo cautioned us to be on our guard. We were getting close to our destination. When I pressed him as to what we were expected to fight here, he looked at me with a gleam in his eye.

"We're here to take down X'rphan, the White Wyrm!"

"Are you fucking serious?! You want the two of us to take on a dragon all by ourselves?" I exclaimed, shocked by his choice of trial. I had heard of X'rphan before, and though I knew we were technically overleveled for the encounter, that didn't mean it would necessarily be easy.

"Nonsense, I'll be backing you up on this one. However, I'm not here to carry you. You still need to show me you are capable warriors. Now relax, we're almost there," he said dismissing my apprehension. I looked to Kali, though she didn't say anything except shake her head and follow the man. We made our way to the base of the nearest mountain and began to ascend it towards X'rphan's roost. As we got close, I went through my menu to verify all of my gear and crystals. I didn't want to be mid combat and not be able to quickly access something I needed.

Upon reaching the plateau we were presented with a flat area covered in ice spikes that ranged from a few inches to many feet in height. They led up to a large hole in the center of the mountain, where the dragon's nest was presumed to be. It was getting to be quite late in the day, so we prepared ourselves for the coming fight. X'rphan was known to be nocturnal in nature, so it would be awakening soon. Being a field dungeon boss, the dragon was able to respawn after being defeated. However the treasure drops and experience from such a creature fell off for each player who had defeated it. Soon, bosses like X'rphan were nothing more than practice for skill usage. I'm sure that was why Tetsubo had chosen it for a trial. X'rphan was likely to be enough of a challenge for us that we would have at pay attention to what we were doing, but not so great as to be more than we could handle. Inwardly, I was a bit excited to take on the dragon, as I had always fancied the creatures throughout my childhood.

As the evening settled on us, we didn't have to wait long before our foe made his presence known. With a loud roar, the white scaled dragon burst forth from its mountain lair. It flew up into the sky and spread out its wings as it look around for prey. As its ruby-red gaze fell upon us, it roared again at our intrusion into its territory. I could feel a wave of coldness wash over us, and unconsciously reached for my katana. I noticed Kali had readied her crescent blade as well. Tetsubo chuckled and plucked a large, two-handed axe from his back. I could see the glimmer of bloodlust in his eyes. He was someone who reveled in this sort of thing. I didn't know whether that was good or not. However, I didn't have time to ponder the thought, as X'rphan swooped in to attack us. On my HUD, I noticed that the beast had three full health bars. This was going to be interesting.

Coming down at near blinding speed, we were all forced to lunge out of the way as the dragon blew past us while tearing at the place where we had previously stood. Its claws gouged deep into the ground leaving a series of nasty scars behind. Kali wheeled and flung a series of throwing daggers that impacted in the backside of the beast. With a roar of protest, X'rphan took to the skies again and came to a hover outside the reach of our weapons. It inhaled deeply and blew out a cone of freezing breath that threatened to turn us all to icicles. I dove for cover among the ice fixtures already on the ground and saw Kali do the same. Tetsubo actually charged the dragon's position and made it inside its cone of attack before he could be harmed. As I stuck my head back out to see what he was up to, I understood. He was pulling the dragon's attention away from us so we could continue to hit it from behind. The only problem was that the creature was still in the air. If we couldn't ground it, this was going to be a near impossible task to accomplish, and Kali only had so many throwing daggers. She mainly used them as distractions and to pull lone monsters away from larger groups. They weren't made for true damage dealing.

While Tetsubo ran past X'rphan, he taunted it to keep its attention. It spread its wings wide to allow itself to continue to hover while it prepared another breath attack against the axe warrior. Seeing an opportunity, I shouted over to Kali.

"I have an idea," I cried out to her amongst the wind that had mysteriously picked up after the battle had begun. "We gotta get it on the ground. I'll give you a boost, and you can clip its wings." She looked at me for a moment, before realizing what I was planning to do. Nodding, she moved back away from me a good twenty feet or so. Together, we both took off at top speed towards the great wyrm. As I judged the trajectory, I came to an abrupt stop and swung my right arm low towards the ground and slightly behind me to create a sort of platform. Kali leapt nimbly and landed on it while bending her knees preparing to jump. With all of my might, I flung her upwards right at the dragon. At the pinnacle of my arm's arc, she pushed off and flew straight at her target like a bullet. Normally, I would never have been able to do such a thing in real life, but in this world, things like this became possible through the careful distribution of skill and ability points across your character. I had primarily focused on strength and speed with my build, so I could easily lift objects normally outside my bodies bounds. It also helped that Kali had focused on speed and agility, making her exceptionally light and fast.

As she reached the dragon's back, she was easily over thirty or forty feet in the air. She slammed her blade into the beast's right wing and proceeded to rake it open as she slid down towards the ground, opening a great wound and destroying the creature's aerodynamics. Cutting herself free, she fell to the ground and tumbled away to avoid taking any damage from the fall. X'rphan let out an ear piercing roar of pain and rage as it began to fall. It flailed about trying to use its remaining wing to regain balance, but failed as it crashed into the stony, ice-covered ground below. Taking the opportunity to get in an attack before it recovered, I raced to its position while activating my Kaen Ha skill. It imbued my sword with fire, so that I could do more damage to this ice-based creature. I cut deeply into the beast's side and scored as many hits as I could with the extra damage the skill afforded me. Kali joined my assault and went for the dragon's neck. Tetsubo brought down his axe onto X'rphan's head time and again as the beast struggled, opening multiple red gouges across its features.

We had successfully emptied one of the dragon's HP bars and had taken a significant chunk out of its second when if finally regained its feet. It swiped a clawed arm at the axe wielder before it, knocking him away even through his block. It then whipped its tail at us on its side. I shoved Kali out of the way while taking the brunt of the blow. Tumbling backwards, I nearly fell into the pit that was the dragon's lair. As I looked down into the bottomless darkness of it, I breathed a small sigh of relief. It looked to be a hell of a fall, and I didn't feel like experimenting with that kind of damage today. Gazing at my HP bar, I saw that the hit was less severe than I had anticipated. I was only down about a fifth of my total points. Nevertheless, I knew I couldn't take too many chances with X'rphan or I would come to regret it. As I jumped up to rejoin the fight, I saw that Tetsubo had the creature's attention again while Kali was busy harrying it from its flanks. The wyrm sliced and pounded the fighter in front of it, keeping him on the defensive. I noticed Tetsubo's HP bar was approaching the halfway point, so I switched out with him in holding the monster's attention. I had been upgrading my own taunting skill, _Chōsen_ , in my battles with Kali so I was able to easily garner the beast's attention now. Raising my sword straight above me in an overhead stance, it began to glow a bright white color. Noticing the glow, X'rphan turned to engage me behind it. Tetsubo nodded his thanks and temporarily backed off to to regain his composure. Seeing me as the dragon's next target, Kali rushed in to deliver a number of blows on its back leg and abdomen. Getting a bit carried away, she hit it one too many times, causing X'rphan to kick its back leg out catching her with its full force. She went sliding away to crash into some of the icicles bordering the battleground.

"Kali!" I yelled in concern while running away from her position, prompting the dragon to follow me. She had taken a solid blow, losing about a third of her health in the process. Her defense was built around parrying, deflecting or dodging blows entirely to survive. Taking a direct like that could easily prove to be disastrous if she wasn't careful. Looking to the dragon before me, I saw that it was well within its last HP bar, so I knew it was time to end this fight. I came to a stop and faced X'rphan with my sword in a top position above my head, with the blade tip pointing at the dragon. Activating my _Denka_ skill, my blade glowed a brilliant blue as I charged forward at top speed to bury it in its chest. It reeled back roaring in pain, and I took the opportunity to attack again. Spinning around, I _Kyōryokuna dageki_ 'ed it with a backhanded strike opening a great red line across its exposed belly. The dragon actually fell to its side, as it had only a sliver of health left. Raising my blade above my head once more, I stabbed it straight down into its throat using my _Kūdetā_ finisher skill. As the last of its health drained away, X'rphan glowed white and exploded into the usual burst of particles before fading away. A small 'Congratulations' screen popped up before each of us and showed the experience and Cor we had all earned from the fight. I stood there panting from the exertion and sheathed my sword. While I rested, Kali and Tetsubo made their way over to me.

"Now that was a fight!" Tetsubo exclaimed happily, sheathing his axe and bumping his fist into my shoulder. "You two did an amazing job, I'm very impressed."

"Are you insane?" Kali spat, staring hard at the Vanguard Commander. "That thing could have killed us!"

"Relax, little miss. We were never in any real danger," Tetsubo responded nodding his head past us. As we looked towards where he had indicated, I noticed a small team of figures standing at the edge of the plateau watching us. They all wore heavy coats with hoods, but it was clear from the color scheme on their equipment that they were additional members of the Knights. I assumed they had been watching us the whole time. "That boss was designed for a team of ten or more to take down. We did it with only three," Tetsubo continued. "However, if things had truly started to go sideways, they would have stepped in and ended the fight before any real harm could come to us."

"And I imagine they were there for your protection as well, in case we weren't who we claimed to be?" I said. He nodded at me sternly. It looks like whatever had happened before had really affected the guild. Well, I couldn't blame them for wanting to make sure their people were safe. In fact, it gave me high hopes that we had chosen the right people to join.

"All right, let's head back and deliver the good news. As of this moment, you have my full endorsement to join the Knights of the Blood!" he said and gave us each a spare teleport crystal so we could port back to Granzam. Taking it, I looked to Kali and smiled. She still seemed a bit perturbed with the whole trial, but let it pass unsaid.

We headed back to the KoB headquarters and met with Daizen once again. After being officially inducted into the guild, we were presented with appropriate uniforms to wear. Kali was granted a set of leather vestments with metal plates that covered her chest and right shoulder, elbows and knees. The whole outfit was colored white with red outlining and a single large red cross on the chest plate. I was given a more typical samurai armor, complete with chestplate, shoulder and thigh guards, and gauntlets. The whole getup sported the same color scheme favoring a white background and red detailing, except instead of a cross on my chestplate, I had a red sword etching. While I didn't mind the flashiness, Kali seemed less than amused.

"You think they would have chosen something a bit less dramatic…" she lamented, picking at her clothing.

"Oh, I don't know. I think it suits you," I said playfully. "It matches your hair perfectly." She scowled and stuck out her tongue at me.

 **The Favor:**

Shortly after we officially joined the Knights of the Blood, I got a personal message from an old friend unexpectedly. Kali and I were currently at our home on the 35th floor when it came in. It caught me by surprise, as I rarely used the messaging system these days. In fact, it had been months since I used it last. As I got the notification pop up, I scrolled over to my friends list to see who it was from. I was a bit nervous, as I had few friends remaining on that list who were still among the living. At this point, I only had three people on my list: Kirito, Argo, and Kali. Long ago, I had removed Kristen from the list as I didn't want her following after me once I left. I thought it better that way. Without her on my list, she couldn't message me. And since Kali was standing right next to me, that ruled her out too…

When I saw just who the messenger was, I sucked in a deep breath, becoming anxious. It was from Argo, the information broker who we owed a favor to after she helped us out of that jam back with the pk'ers.

"Who's it from, hun?" Kali asked as she heard the ping of the notification.

"It's from Argo," I said glancing over to her. Kali froze in place, tensing a bit. She was thinking exactly the same thing I was. As neither of us knew the broker very well, we weren't sure what to expect from her by way of the favor she was owed. "She says she needs us to meet her on floor 59, asap."

"That's odd, why there?" Kali mused out loud. I agreed. That floor had been cleared long ago, so why would an info broker be interested in what should be considered old material? "Well, I guess we shouldn't keep her waiting. Whatever she needs, let's take care of it quickly. I'd rather not have this favor hanging over our heads any longer than necessary," she said.

"Right. Hell, I'd nearly forgot about it; it's been so long." Indeed, it had been several months since we saw her.

So we saddled up and teleported to the 59th floor town of Danac. As we stepped off the platform and looked around, Argo was nowhere to be seen. I thought that a bit odd, and pulled up my friends list once again to see her location. It showed her as somewhere to the northeast side of the map, far from town. I scratched my head and tried to figure out just what the girl was up to out that far. There wasn't any field dungeon around there I was aware of, so I couldn't place a reason for her position. I messaged her that we were on the floor and we're waiting for her in town. While I waited for a response, Kali was studying her position on her own map.

"Isn't that area just a bunch of NPC farms and such?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so," I responded.

"Wait, she's moving. Looks to be westward, but it's hard to tell. Wait, she's circling back. Huh…" I was about to look over at Kali's map so I didn't have to pull my own, when a new message popped up. It simply said ' _Get over here, fast!_ ' With that, and her odd movement that was starting to look like evasive maneuvers, I began to get worried. Showing the message to Kali, she had the same look as me. Activating my friend tracker overlay on my HUD, the two of us took off as fast as we could.

As we ran out of town, we were greeted with the grass filled plains and gentle hills of the level. It was perfect territory for growing crops, as was evident by the numerous farms scattered about. With the monsters being so low in level here, we simply plowed through their spawn points. Most of them paid us no heed, unless we came too close. Those that reacted to our presence only chased us a short ways before giving up. I noticed that our difference in levels caused them to give up quicker than I was used to. That was fine by me. If Argo was in trouble, we didn't need these mobs slowing us down. While I followed her trail, Kali kept her map up as an additional guide and to provide shortcuts.

As we passed over a set of hills, we came across yet another farm. This one was a bit different, as the main house for it was in ruins. There was an intact barn and windmill off to the side, however. We were close to Argo's position, so I slowed our approach wary of an ambush. Scanning the area, I saw no movement or heard any sounds of battle.

"I don't like this," I remarked. "Where does it say she is now?"

"Hmm, looks like she's stopped moving and is somewhere over by that barn and windmill," Kali said taking one last look at her map before closing it to focus on the scene before us.

"Ok, we take this slow. I'm not looking to get jumped here. We'll clear the barn first then move on to the mill if necessary," I said while drawing my katana. Kali nodded her agreement and readied her weapon as well. We also took a second to assure our healing and teleport crystals were in easy to access places, just in case. I led the way across the crop field before us towards the barn, all the while watching for anything out of place. This whole situation was starting to bug me. Why was Argo out here? Had someone lured her out here with ill intent, or had she discovered something sinister while working on her player guide books. That was something she was well known for working on. They seemed the only things she cared about in this world, aside from Cor.

As we closed on the barn, I held up my left hand in a closed fist halting our advance and listened. I couldn't make out anything, so we pushed up to the double doors leading in. One was sitting open, so I planted my back against the wall next to it and glanced through quickly. Nothing presented an immediate threat, so I carefully moved inside, my _Hangeki_ skill activated and standing by in case something attacked. The glow from the weapon helped to light the inside of the building a bit, giving me a better view of its interior. Kali slipped in behind me and off to one side. There were a few piles of hay sitting in one corner of the barn next to a couple of empty livestock runs. There was an upper level where some bags of feed and tools were stored. Looking to me and nodding towards a nearby ladder, Kali quickly and quietly made her way up for a look. Jumping back down, she shook her head indicating that Argo wasn't there.

"Alright, let's check out the mill," I whispered to her.

"Right," she said with a look of determination across her features. We could tell Argo was still alive, as she was still on our friends list, but nevertheless we were growing more worried by the second. We had to find her. She saved us from spending our days in the prisons of the Black Iron Palace due to a misunderstanding, so we wanted to make sure she was ok.

Moving towards the back door, I observed our surroundings outside before crossing the distance between the two buildings. The windmill's door was closed and offered resistance when I tried to push it open. I stood there and listened hard. All was quiet, except for something that sounded like a body shifting slightly. Looking to Kali with a 'here we go' look, I took a step back and kicked in the door before rushing in ready for a fight, sending a couple of barrels skittering across the floor. Kali was hot on my heels, in case someone tried to get in behind me. No one jumped out at us. In fact, I saw nothing even remotely threatening in the room. Dropping my guard a bit, I called to our wayward friend.

"Argo? You here?" There was a shuffling above us on a raised platform where one could access the gears of the mill. A familiar, whiskered painted face popped out to look at us.

"Well it's about time!" she complained. "They could be back at any moment."

"What are you talking about? Who's coming back?" Kali asked pinning the hooded girl above us with a hard stare. "Is there someone giving you trouble?" I was about to say something when I heard it. Footsteps, coming towards us at a high rate of speed. I crouched down and put my hand on the ground, focusing on the approaching feet. They didn't sound like the footfalls of a person. It felt more like something a creature would make, and there was more than one. My radar didn't show anything, but that wasn't surprising, as enemies only popped up if you could draw line of sight to them. As the sound drew nearer, I could make out a slight jingling, and heavy breathing accompanying the footfalls. Kali took notice of me and turned to look towards the doorway.

I stood back up and pulled Kali back behind me while settling into a defensive stance. Whatever they were, they were practically on top of us. I readied my _Kyōryokuna dageki_ skill, preparing to engage whatever had drove Argo into hiding here. Kali set herself just off to my right with a grim look on her face. I understood, as we were trapped in a fairly cramped space that could prove to be difficult to fight in. Luckily, there was only one way in, and it bottlenecked in the doorway. Hopefully, we could keep whatever threat was approaching us single filed there. A shadow fell across the doorway, and the first beast's face came into view. Then another, and another followed until there were no less than five of them facing us.

I stared in shock as the first one began to growl and bark at us, with all but one of the others joining in. They were dogs and one farm pig facing us. They were all growling and barking, yet slowly wagging their tails at us unsure what to do as they could tell we weren't friendly looking at the moment. Finally letting out the breath I had been holding, I sheathed my sword and knelt down to beckon them over. All five rushed over to me, practically falling over themselves, to sniff and lick my hands. The pig flopped over on its back, demanding a belly rub. I happily obliged it while simultaneously trying to pet as many of the dogs as I could. Kali laughed and joined me on the ground, as three of the pack jumped into her lap. Realizing that Argo was still hiding out above us, I turned to call out the all clear.

"It's ok, Argo, you can come down."

"Like hell it is. I'm not going anywhere with those beasts around," she spat while peering out from the ledge. Kali and I shared a look of confusion. I looked back and forth between the pups and the ledge, and it dawned on me.

"Argo...are you...afraid of dogs?" I asked her.

"I am NOT afraid. I just don't like them," she said tersely while crossing her arms. Kali was too busy trying to stifle a laugh, to say anything. I looked away as I smiled at this new development. After sighing mightily, I glanced at Kali.

"Why don't you take them outside, so we can get our canine-fearing friend down." She nodded, and walked towards the door while beckoning the animals to follow her. They happily accompanied her outside and over into the nearby field. Once they were far enough away, I called Argo down. She landed nimbly next to me and dusted herself off.

"Ugh, thanks for that. I thought they'd never leave me alone," she lamented.

"So let me get this straight, you called the two of us out here because you got freaked out by a few dogs and their pig friend?" She waffled a bit, but didn't say anything. "If it was so bad, why didn't you just teleport out?" I asked.

"I was going to, except the walking bacon over there got the drop on me and I lost my crystal while trying to escape," she replied keeping a wary eye towards where the animals were with Kali. She saw my skeptical look and scowled at me, "whatever, we're even now, so long as you keep this little event under wraps." I laughed out loud at that.

"Sure, if that's how you want it. I guess I won't be going to any of your brethren and selling this little misadventure… But I have to know, just what were you doing out here to begin with?"

"You'd better not, if you know what's good for you. I'd make you regret it," she said with a very real glare. "Anyways, I was doing some research for my player guides in using these old farms as crop growing points. I wasn't expecting a fight, so I wasn't prepared for an ambush."

"I see. Well you should be clear to leave now. And don't worry, we won't tell anyone about what happened here, cross my heart," I swore. I would never do something like that to anyone I considered a friend or at least good acquaintance. Hell, everyone is afraid of something, and Argo just happens to be afraid of dogs. Not like it's unheard of… Also, something told me that if for some reason or another I DID let that particular bit of information go, I really would regret it.

 **Floor 75:**

After that little debacle, time passed quickly for us. We still weren't quite ready to join the front lines yet, so we spent our days working on getting our levels and skills up to par. During that time, we rarely got to see our home on the 35th floor. We were typically too exhausted to travel all the way there, so we would either rent a room at the local inn, or collapse at the barracks at the KoB headquarters. After a couple of weeks, we finally felt that we were ready to move up in floors and begin pushing towards the next floor boss. It turns out that everything had been cleared up to the 75th floor now. However, scouts had yet to locate the boss room within the labyrinth there. Seeing that as a good place to begin, we volunteered for one of the scouting parties and started our hunt. I hadn't been told who was leading the particular group we were joining, but it was said that their commander was one of the best. It gave me a good feeling to be working with someone of that caliber.

The particular party we joined consisted of about twenty members from five separate clearing guilds. As we gathered at the teleport gate in the town of Collinia on floor 75, I saw that many players had already arrived and were milling about as they waited for the full group to arrive. The last few players to teleport in came from our own guild. Among them was a face I hadn't seen in a very long time. I stared in shock at the figure walking towards us, mouth agape. Kali eyed me suspiciously, likely getting the wrong impression. It was Kristen, and she was leading the party!

Nudging me roughly in the side, Kali whispered to me, "What's your problem?" I snapped my mouth shut and shook my head.

"Sorry, I just didn't expect HER to be leading us," I said trying to turn away before Kristen could recognize me. Still not understanding, Kali crossed her arms and looked hard at me.

"Look, I get it, she's pretty…" Seeing where she was going with this, I interrupted her.

"No, you don't get it. I know her," I explained. "She's my ex, who I left way back before we met. I had told her to go and join one of the clearing guilds, but I didn't know she joined THIS one. We haven't seen each other since, and I'm sure she thought I was dead since I removed her from my friends list and never contacted her again."

"Oh…" was all she said in return. "Well, looks like now's your chance to say 'hi,'" She nodded her head past me indicating that I should turn around. I closed my eyes, and sighed. Turning back, I saw that Kristen had, indeed, seen me and was standing a few feet away with her hands clenched into fists on her waist. If looks could kill, I would have been deleted from the game on the spot, my brain fried in my skull. This wasn't going to go well for me…

"So...you're alive after all!" she stated flatly. I feigned nonchalance, glancing to the side while crossing my arms and shrugging as if it was no big deal.

"So it would seem," I said. She slapped me then, hard. The entire complement of players around us went dead silent and still, all eyes fixated on the two of us.

"Do you think this is some kind of joke?!" she shouted at me. "You disappeared and never came back. What the hell were you thinking?" Recovering from the hit, I looked at her in defiance. She raised her hand to strike me again, though this time I caught it in a vice-like grip. A look of shock crossed her features, as she tried to pull her hand back. I continued to hold it as I spoke to her.

"Don't do that again." I said, in a quiet but threatening voice. I knew she was mad at me, but I wasn't going to allow her to act out like this in front of everyone here. "I told you I wasn't planning on returning. And if I remember correctly, YOU were the one who said that they wouldn't be there, even if I DID return." I could feel Kali shift uncomfortably behind me, as she wasn't sure what she should do After all, here I was arguing with another girl that I obviously had a special connection with. Just then one of the KoB guardsmen who showed up with her stepped forward.

"Unhand the commander, recruit!" he commanded me. I looked at him, daring a challenge. When I noticed everyone staring at me, I thought better of it and released Kristen's hand. This wasn't the place to have this discussion or get into a fight. "Look, we're all here for a purpose. Let's just get this done, and we can talk about the past later." Kristen, again staring daggers at me, backed off a step and breathed in a deep breath in an effort to calm down.

"You're right, this isn't the time for an argument. But don't think for a second that we are finished here," she said with an edge still in her voice. Wonderful. She nodded at her man, and he backed off to.

Trying to force the attention back to the mission, and away from our little scene, Kristen began to go over the scouting plan. You could tell that everyone was only paying attention half-heartedly, as they were infinitely more interested in what had just transpired. Kali stayed close to me, and I could tell she was deeply interested in what all had led up to that little scene too. I suppose I owed her an explanation, as I had never really mentioned anything about Kristen to her in the past. I felt it just hadn't really mattered enough to bring it up. After all, it's best to leave your baggage behind, isn't it?

After the plan was explained, we set out to scout the labyrinth. Our primary goal was to locate the boss room, of course, but we also were looking to identify any other points of interest. Treasure rooms, monster spawn points, and traps were all on the list of things to look out for. A number of scouting parties had already begun to map the floor, and we were trying to fill in as many blanks as possible before we turned back for the day. As we proceeded, I walked with Kali and quietly tried to explain Kristen's and my past history. She listened quietly, without interrupting while I gave her the full story. I told her about our relations in the years past, how I met her in game here, and how we had stuck together to try to survive until I lost my best friends and set out on my own. By the time I had finished, I noticed that she seemed a bit relieved. That was good, as I didn't want her thinking I had just met up with an old flame again and created some sort of conflict of interest. Hell, nothing could be further from the truth. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that my ex had survived. She certainly didn't deserve to die here, but I wasn't going to go rushing back into her arms again. That time had well past. Kali, no Emilia, was the only person I was interested in anymore.

It was getting late in the day and we were about to wrap up our mission, when our group rounded a corner deep in the dungeon and spotted a large set of double doors. We instantly recognized them as the entryway to the boss room. As if to cement our findings, you could literally feel a change in the air about us. The whole place reeked of malice and danger, to the point that you could almost taste it. As the leading element of our team reported in to Kristen that the boss room had been located, she made her way to the front of our formation to see it for herself. Kali and I made our way forward too, as I was interested in seeing what our next move would be. While I doubted that we would actually engage the boss and try to defeat it, I figured we might at least take a peek at it to see what we were dealing with. While she and her KoB cohorts discussed what to do with the representatives from the other guilds present, I stood off to one side with Kali and rested for the moment.

"Do you think they will order us to head inside?" one of the members of our group asked, coming over to stand by us.

"I'm not sure. The way I hear it, the bosses on these upper levels are getting more and more dangerous. Going in there, even if just to take a look, is a significant risk," I said to him. He seemed a little relieved at the idea of not having to go inside. Glancing around at the others who were waiting for orders, I noticed a lot of nervousness among the party. I also noticed the voices rising from the leader group, as it seemed they had come to a difference of opinions.

"I say we head inside," one man said. "We need to know what we're dealing with!"

"No, we should wait until we get more members from the Assault Teams here before doing anything," one of the KoB commanders argued.

"He's right, " Kristen added. "These floors are becoming too dangerous to just go off halfcocked. Just wandering inside is a good way to get somebody killed."

"However, isn't it the responsibility of the Scouting Teams to bring back as much information on the floors and bosses as possible so the Assault Teams can better take on the target?" one of the sub-commanders asked.

"I say we put it to a vote," the original man suggested. "After all, we are an alliance here, so everyone should get a say in how we proceed." Kristen and her KoB counterpart looked at each other and he shrugged.

"Very well, we'll put it to a vote. However, no matter the outcome, I expect you to honor the decision," she said. He nodded, and the five guild representatives of the scouting party voted as to our course of action. It came out three to two, with the majority in favor of scouting the boss. With a heavy sigh, Kristen set up a group of ten volunteers to head inside. If things went well, we would all have good news to report back. I was going to go, but was stopped short by Kali. She seemed quite on edge about the whole thing, and refused to let me go so I didn't argue with her.

The ten volunteers stepped forward and their leader, the sub-commander under Kristen, pushed the doors to the boss room open. The area beyond was flat and dark. From the entryway, there appeared to be no sign of the boss, so the group carefully moved inside. Once the ten man team was inside, the doors slammed shut. Those of us on the outside immediately tried to reopen them, but were unable to. Shortly afterward, we began to hear muffled screams coming from the other side of the doorway. Try as we might, we couldn't force the doors back open; we were helpless to assist those trapped inside, and it seemed that the place was guarded by an Anti-Teleportation field. After a full five agonizing minutes had passed, the screams silenced and the doors were once again able to be opened. We looked inside but were unable to find any trace of the ten scouts or the boss. Everyone had just disappeared. The team had been completely wiped out.

Something like this happening hadn't been heard of in a long time. Devastated by the losses, we all headed back in a state of shock. I felt bad for Kristen, as she had been in charge of the operation, and would likely suffer some sort of consequence for the tragedy. However, I knew it shouldn't all fall on her, as the group had voted on the action that lead to the deaths of several players. And those who went in knew full well the chance they were taking. When I had a moment, I relayed that information to Tetsubo so that he might pass it along to Heathcliff either before or during whatever hearing took place. As it turned out, she was not held responsible for the incident, and no consequences were brought against her. I also did my best to steer clear of her during the next few days, as I wasn't too keen on another argument. Things were bad enough already, and I didn't want to complicate them any further. The thing to focus on right now was finding a way to bring down that boss. As we hadn't had a chance to see it, we still didn't know what we were facing.

Kali and I did our best to prepare ourselves for the fight we knew was coming. When we had decided to join the front lines, we hadn't expected it to be this bad. All the news we had heard before had indicated that the clearing guilds were making good progress, and casualties were at an all time low. While we figured that things wouldn't be easy, this was way past what we had anticipated. Though I guess it had to happen sometime. After all, we were approaching the last floors of the game, as it was only natural for things to get progressively harder as you neared the end.

 **Journey's End:**

As expected, a general call went out for all high level players on the front lines to begin assembling for an assault on the 75th floor's boss. I had even heard that the guilds were recalling those on leave to rejoin the fight. I'm sure those players couldn't be happy about having their time off cut short. I could sympathize with that. Who wanted to be forced to come back early from some much needed time away from constantly facing death? Kali and I had managed to get a couple days rest at our cottage in Mishe before the summons came.

During that time, I finally proposed to her and gave her the ring I had picked out so long ago. Despite everything going on around us, it was still one of the hardest things I have ever done. I mean, I knew how I felt about her. And I was pretty sure she felt the same way, but I was still extremely nervous throughout the whole process. Luckily, she accepted the proposal without a moment's hesitation and we made it official through the game system. It turned out that she had picked out a ring for me as well, but hadn't found the time to give it to me yet. I promised her that once we made it out of the game, that I would find her and do this again, properly. She just smiled and agreed. When we showed up at our guild's headquarters to report in, we wore our bands proudly. As those around us noticed our new jewelry, they all congratulated us. Even Kristen wished us well when she saw us, though I could have sworn I detected a bit of sadness behind her eyes.

A time was set for the assault team to gather for the raid on the boss's room. Kali and I were added to the roster, as we had useful knowledge of the zone and our levels and skills were solid enough to be useful during the fight. It was pretty much stated that this was an 'all hands on deck' moment anyhow, so we already expected to be part of the fight. Even with the numbers for our force growing, I was still nervous. I think the loss of the scouting members had really shaken up the clearing guilds. We were all wondering how this would turn out. As the countdown to the mission grew close, Kali and I teleported back to the main square of Collinia on floor 75. We arrived to find ourselves surrounded by the assault force. In total, there had to easily be forty to fifty heavily armed players geared up for action. I noticed a pair of latecomers arriving shortly after us, and recognized one of the as Kirito. I smiled and nodded to him as he walked past with a pretty girl dressed in KoB attire next to him. He returned the gesture and they found a place off to the side to await the force's leadership to arrive.

It didn't take long for them to show, and I was pleasantly surprised to see none other than Heathcliff, himself, in the lead. I had heard that he was an insanely powerful player who had never had his health drop into the yellow zone during a single battle. I felt a little better knowing that someone of his caliber was going to be fighting alongside the rest of us. Even seeing Kirito here helped to lift my spirits. Alongside of him were the other commanders of the Assault Teams as well as Tetsubo. Kristen appeared behind the guildmaster with a small group of the other Scout Team commanders. It looked like everyone was finally here. Without a word, Heathcliff marched past the players gathered about and moved to one side of the square, his entourage in tow. He held up a large blue crystal in front of him.

"Corridor, open." A brilliant blue portal sprung to life in front of him as the crystal shattered from use. He turned to the folks gathered and said, "Well, here we go." He then stepped through the portal and disappeared. His commanders followed suit and then so did everyone else. Once we were all on the other side we found ourselves standing in front of those large, ominous double doors once more. Players began to make their last minute checks of gear and crystals before we headed into the fight. Kali and I went into our menus as well to verify our loadout and place healing crystals for quick access. As people finished up their preparations, Heathcliff address us once more.

"Everyone ready? The Knights of the Blood will be out in front, distracting the boss and blocking its attacks. In the meantime, the rest of you have to stay sharp and try to figure out its attack patterns. I won't lie, this battle will be hard. But I have faith that we can, and will, prevail. FOR OUR DAY OF LIBERATION!" His speech spurred cheers and shouts of encouragement from all of those gathered. I was surprised by the commander's charisma. Sure, I had heard that he was a strong and capable fighter, but I couldn't help but notice that with just a few simple words he had spurred our entire force into a battle frenzy. I stayed quiet myself, mentally preparing for what was to come. Kali and I had already vowed that we would protect each other, no matter what happened inside that room. I intended to keep that vow, and would not let myself fall into a false sense of security. With everyone rearing to go, Heathcliff turned and pushed open the doors to the boss's chamber. Everyone drew their weapons and waited for the command. Without hesitation, the commander raised his sword and shield.

"FORWARD! TO BATTLE!" he yelled, and charged inside. With a roar, his men charged in right behind him, as did the rest of us. Heathcliff and the main fighters of the Knights headed for the dead center of the room, while the rest of us spilled into the wings, in a sort of flanking maneuver. Despite being part of the Knights of the Blood, Kristen, Kali and myself moved in among the sides of the room. So did the rest of the Scout Team leaders. We weren't as heavily armored as those down in front, and as scouts we were in charge of locating the boss's weak points and analysing its attack patterns. However, as we all filed into our places, we could not locate the boss. As I inspected the room's perimeter, I noticed that we were all on a large central platform of some kind, while additional smaller platforms were positioned out away from where we were. Yet, as we inspected these platforms, we still found nothing to assail. The room became quiet as people began to get nervous. That was when I heard it. A soft clicking noise was coming from somewhere around us. As I listened and tried to locate the source, I felt a chill go down my spine as I realized it was above us on the ceiling.

"UP THERE!" someone yelled, and all eyes turned upward. Sure enough, the boss was clinging to the ceiling, directly over our heads and in the perfect place to ambush us. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Despite being over a hundred feet above us, the thing was huge. The creature resembled a large, skeletal centipede with an elongated skull featuring multiple mandibles and red shining eyes. It had two large scythe-like claws attached to its shoulders, and the majority of its bones all down its body looked to function similarly to these arms. As I scanned the monster before us, I saw that it was called the Skull Reaper, and the bastard had no less than five health bars. That was more than anyone had ever seen in the past. We were in for one hell of a fight! As if on cue, the creature released its grip on the ceiling and fell directly towards our battlegroup.

"Stay away from it, spread out!" Heathcliff commanded as the boss plummeted downward. Most of the group fell back to the fringes on the platform, but a couple of stragglers weren't fast enough. As the Skull Reaper landed, a red aura extended outwards from it to engulf the entire room and the doors to the entrance disappeared. It had triggered the Anti-Crystal trap, and we were all now locked in here with it. With a single swipe, the boss scythed through both of the men before it as they tried to escape. In a single blow, both men perished. With a dry, raspy roar, the creature charged the main force. While Heathcliff and his men stood their ground, a few others broke ranks and ran. The boss changed its trajectory and closed with the runners. As it reached out to strike one of them, Heathcliff stepped forward and blocked its attack with his shield. Without pause, the Reaper swung around the man and ran its other claw through its original prey before scuttling off to attack another victim. It was fast, and its slithering made it difficult to corral it into a central area.

While it went after another one of the battlegroup, its attack was stopped short again by Kirito who was wielding a set of dual blades in a cross guard and bracing himself down on one knee. When the boss attempted to reach around him like before, Heathcliff was there to block the follow up attack. That was when the girl Kirito had arrived with delivered a heavy blow and forced the boss back a few feet, staggering it momentarily.

"If we block it together, we have a chance. Come on, we can do this," she said lifting the black clad swordsman up on his feet. He nodded and set himself for the next attack.

"Me and Asuna will deal with the scythes. Everyone else, flank it and attack!" Kirito yelled to the rest of us. Together, the two of them and Heathcliff mounted an impressive defense while the rest of us charged and attempted to do as much damage as we could. I began to cycle through my most powerful sword skills while hitting any opening the boss presented. Kali was right beside me the whole time, deftly swooping in between the smaller, but no less deadly, scythes along the creature's body to land hit after hit before falling back to try it again. I noticed Kristen out of the corner of my eye, driving her rapier into the beast time and again, a look of determination showing across her features. It became a running battle, as the Skull Reaper refused to sit still. It would dash around the room at irregular intervals slicing at anyone who presented themselves. Yet the back of the boss proved to be just as dangerous as its front. With a whip-like motion, it would fling out its tail and strike through those harrying its flanks. A number of players were caught off guard by this, and died horribly.

The area was lit up by the flashes of skills being activated. Time and again, we plunged our weapons into the boss, trying to bring it down. Numerous red cut lines began to form all along its body, but it still had plenty of health. After what seemed like an age had past, I looked at my HUD to see that we had only done enough damage to deplete three of its five HP bars. As I looked around, I could see fatigue starting to set in. Also, our losses were starting to stack up. With the ability to one shot anyone who misstepped, the Skull Reaper was still stupidly powerful. Nevertheless, we were all determined to bring this thing down, no matter the cost. There wasn't any other choice; we were trapped here with it.

As the boss finally neared the end of its health points, Heathcliff ordered one final attack. With a roar, everyone charged in for the kill. With its HP at less than ten percent, the creature floundered and became easy prey for our superior numbers. We laid waste to the beast, draining everything it had left. When its HP hit zero, it raised up with one last scratchy roar of defiance and glowed a bright blue. The whole room was bathed in the light of its death as it shattered into a million pieces and died. A large 'Congratulations' appeared overhead, announcing our victory. However, there was no cheering to be heard. Everyone was so exhausted from the battle, that most players simply collapsed and tried to catch their breath. Kali and I were among them. Only one man remained standing, Commander Heathcliff. I was stunned to see the man standing there completely composed, and not even breathing heavy. How the hell was he so calm and collected after all of that? As I scanned the man, I saw that his health bar was still in the green, despite the repeated blows he had weathered throughout the fight. Someone asked how many we lost during the battle. We were all disheartened to hear that a total of fourteen people had perished during the course of the battle. Some lamented on how we were even going to survive the remaining twenty five floors if we were going to be incurring losses of this magnitude with each new boss. I was hard pressed not to share their concern.

As we all sat there, I noticed Kirito staring at Heathcliff. There was a strange look on his face. Without warning, he grabbed one of his swords and charged the commander while activating one of his skills. Everyone was taken aback, including Heathcliff who didn't even have time to raise his shield in defense. However, as the tip of Kirito's sword closed with the guildmaster, it stopped short and impacted into an invisible field. A small purple hexagon popped up at the tip reading 'Immortal Object.' That made no sense, as anything that read that when struck was invulnerable. Everyone gasped in shock. At first, no one said anything. Then the girl Kirito had identified as Asuna stepped forward.

"Commander Heathcliff, w-what's going on?" she asked him. Before Heathcliff could respond, Kirito spoke up.

"I think I got the answer to that," he said with an edge in his voice. "The reason why the commander's HP never hits yellow is because he's protected by the system." There was a round of gasps about the room. "You know, ever since day one, something has bugged me about this whole thing. I was always wondering, where is he hiding as he watches us and controls everything in this world? Well, the answer's pretty simple. It's basic psychology. In fact, it's so simple, every kid knows it. There's nothing more boring than watching someone else play a game. Is there, Akihiko Kayaba?" Everyone was shocked at this turn of events. I myself was unable to form any words. All I could do was stare at the man responsible for this whole mess, standing before me. After all this time, over two years of torture, of being trapped in this fake world and forced to watch friends and loved ones die, we now learn that the culprit behind it all was among us the whole time. I felt nauseated, and began to shake with rage.

"Just for my curiosity's sake, would you mind telling me how you figured it out?" Heathcliff-now-Kayaba asked. Kirito proceeded to explain his logic in determining how he had come to his conclusion, but I wasn't paying attention. All I could do was focus on the man responsible for my friends' deaths. Kali was beside me then, grabbing hold of my hand and trying to shake me out of the haze I was in. I began to stand up, despite Kali trying to hold me back.

After owning up to being Kayaba, he next revealed to Kirito, and therefore the rest of us, that he would be the final boss on the top floor and that we would have to beat him there if we wanted to escape this world. While I slowly stalked forward towards this demon of a person, another from his entourage jumped up and attacked him. Kayaba simply sidestepped and activated something in his menu. The man fell past him in a heap on the floor. I saw that he was now suffering from the paralysis condition. Before I could act, Kayaba inflicted everyone else with the same condition. I dropped to my knees with Kali falling next to me. We stared at each other in alarm. This couldn't be happening, could it? What was this bastard going to do to us now. Perhaps he would kill us all for finding out his true identity? I distantly heard Kirito question him on that very topic, though Kayaba refused stating that it wouldn't be very sporting. I noticed that Kirito was the only person, other than Kayaba, who wasn't paralysed. Kayaba mentioned that Kirito was deserving of a reward for figuring out his true identity. With that he challenged Kirito to a duel on the spot. He said he would remove his 'Immortal' status and if the swordsman could defeat him, he would free everyone in the game early. After a moment, the boy accepted the proposal, despite the protests of Asuna and a few others gathered around. And so the two squared off against one another. I was so focused on their battle, I hadn't noticed Kali trying to get my attention.

"T-Thomas, I…" she stammered. As I looked over to her, I saw a look of panic across her face. When she used my real name, I knew something was wrong. So far, we had continued to use our game tags while here. Confused, I scanned her to see what the problem was. Aside from the paralysis, she had another familiar indicator flashing across her HP bar. She showed she was disconnecting. I paled and flew into a panic of my own, as visions of Mike's demise came flooding back to me. She was trying to reach out to me, but was struggling against the status condition on her. I too fought against the paralysis.

"Oh, god...No!" I cried out. I wasn't going to go through this again. I couldn't. We had come so far, how could this happen now. I couldn't believe it, I wouldn't. As swords clashed in the background, and the battle for the fate of everyone in the world of Aincrad was on the line, I was losing the one person my life depended on.

"I'm…sorry," she said, tears forming in her eyes.

"No...no, you can't go," I begged her. "Not like this, not after we've come so far." I fought with everything I had to reach her. Slowly, my hand extended out and grasped hers. It was warm to the touch, as it had always been, but was shaking. Emilia's avatar began to glow a faint white. People around us gasped and whispered in panicked tones. I paid them no heed, as my world was disappearing before me. "Emilia, please, you can't leave me like this. Goddammit, I love you. You can't die, you just can't!" I cried. Somehow, I was able to break the paralysis holding me as a new ability called Last Stand activated, and I moved to cradle her in my arms once more. My tears flowed freely down my cheek, and she reached up to wipe them away.

"It's ok," she said trying to assure me. "It's ok, I love you too." Her voice broke a little, as she started to fade away. "I'll look for you in the next life, I promise."

And with that, she disappeared, her body no longer tangible. I pulled my arms up around me trying to grasp something that wasn't there. I let out a cry of grief before collapsing into a heap on the ground. Around me, people spoke in soft tones about Kali disappearing. Their words were drowned out by the continued sounds of the duel taking place across the room, but I didn't care. Emilia was gone. It was too much to bear. I couldn't bear to face this world without her. I'd lost too much now. Mike, Luke, Brian, and now Emilia too. I just wanted to curl up into a ball and die as well. Eventually, I pushed myself up to a kneeling position. I didn't look to see how the duel was progressing. I didn't care. My game had already come to an end. I slowly pulled my sword up and unsheathed it. There were murmurs from around me as to what I was up to. They didn't matter.. I placed the tip of the katana at my belly button and breathed in deeply.

"No, don't do it," someone cried out.

"Wait, what are you doing, man?" another said.

"Tom, no!" Kristen yelled from nearby. I paid them no heed. I had nothing left, I just wanted it to be over. The pain was just too much anymore. I looked up one last time to see Kirito drive a sword through Kayaba's chest. The man responsible for this whole disaster was finally defeated. I stared blankly at it, finding it ironic that that would happen just after the woman I loved had died. That would be how it ended. After a moment, a system announcement went off claiming that on November seventh, at two fifty five pm, the game had been cleared. I let go of the sword and simply stared up in awe. It clattered to the ground next to me, while I closed my eyes in despair.

 **Aftermath:**

I opened my eyes to find myself in a darkened room. I waited for my eyes to adjust before looking around to try to identify where I was. Moving my head was difficult, as I still had the NerveGear helmet on, and my neck felt stiff. As I tried to reach up and take the helmet off, I found my arms to be extremely heavy. After an effort, I finally managed to get them out from under the covers of the bed I was lying in. I struggled to get the helmet off, as my muscles had atrophied terribly. Once I managed to get the thing off, I let it roll off the bed and crash to the ground. Finally free to look around, I saw a familiar sight about me. The hospital room I was in was very similar to the one I had been in way back when I had had my liver transplant. I looked at all of the machines around me that had kept me alive throughout the whole ordeal I had just escaped. I sat there in silence for a moment just realizing that I was free. The time indicated that it was about 1am where I was.

I tried to sit up but hadn't the strength to do so. As I looked myself over, I noted how skeletal I appeared. It was worse than I expected. When last I was in the hospital, I had only been down for about a couple of months. It was a running joke of ours that I had looked like a little starving Ethiopian kid back then. This time, however, I had been down for over two years. I couldn't believe just how bad I was this time. But here I was. Alive, and out of that accursed game. Then it fell in on me; while I was here, Emilia and my friends weren't. A wave of sadness rolled over me, and I just laid there and cried. I must have passed out, because the next time I was aware of anything, it was morning. The duty nurse came into my room to check on me and my attached equipment. She froze upon seeing me awake, and immediately rushed to call a doctor. My world filled with people checking up on me and asking me questions. My family arrived to see me and were overjoyed that I had finally woken up. Even those in other states flew in to see me. While I was happy to see them too after so long, I couldn't help but feel for those who hadn't made it. Even amongst the elation around me, I began to feel depressed. I had made it back, alone. And I'd likely have to face the families of those who didn't.

Once I was deemed fit enough to leave the hospital, I was taken back home to continue my recovery. I was wheelchair bound for the first couple of months while I worked through physical therapy to regain some of the muscle mass I had lost. My brother, Ryan, moved out to stay with me and help me along this process. He had been trained as a nurse and refused to let anyone other than himself or my dad care for me. My dad didn't argue and, in fact, was happy to let him stay with us. During that time, I finally remembered and asked about the intense pain I encountered when I was with Emilia. It was explained to me that by a fluke accident, the machine I was on that dispensed my immunosuppressants broke and was leaking the medication onto the floor against the back wall of the room. It wasn't known how long I had gone without my medication, but once I began to exhibit signs of early liver failure, the problem was discovered. The doctors immediately got me back on track and closely watched me for a while to make sure things reverted back to normal. They had no idea that any of the symptoms had actually crossed over to my consciousness within the game. I guess it must have been a pretty close call, indeed.

While I was home, I had many visitors. Some were from work who came to check up on me. Others were from the news and other media groups. I declined their interviews and my dad sent them away, sometimes with threats of violence if they didn't leave. Kristen's parents even swung by a few times to check on me. Through them, I learned that she had successfully made it out of the game and was recovering out in California where she currently resided. It was nice to see them, as we had always been close despite whatever turn Kristen's and my relationship took. I even got a visit from the authorities who were investigating the whole incident in Japan. They were looking for information on Akihiko Kayaba, as well as offering their full support in helping to pay for my medical bills. I gave them what information I could, but I really didn't have anything new to offer them. I did inquire as to the health and whereabouts of some of the others I figured had survived. I was told they were unable to reveal such information at this time, but would give me the contact information for the agency handling the survivors' cases.

I used the information they gave me to contact the Ministry of Internal Affair's Telecommunications Bureau, Advanced Network Division. There I was able to talk to a man named Seijirou Kikuoka. It turns out that this man was in charge of the Sword Art Online Case Victims Rescue Force, which was the group responsible for seeing to the wellbeing of the game's survivors. I was told that Kirito, or rather Kazuto Kirigaya, had survived and was in good condition, as were many others. I was happy to hear that and told him to send my regards as well as contact information if Kazuto ever wanted to talk, to which he promised to do. Seijirou also said that a special school was being put together to help those who had been trapped in game to catch up in their studies, and be a safe place to support them through the aftermath of the experience. I thought that was a nice touch. I was sure it would be difficult for those coming back to the real world to readjust after so long in a virtual one. Plus, this way they would be spared the bother of those around them who hadn't gone through the ordeal. When I asked if he had any information on Emilia, he told me that he didn't, regretfully. It seemed that they hadn't yet compiled a full list of those who were stuck in the game but lived outside of Japan. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, this was a group set up to help the survivors. There was little that could be done for those who had died.

As the months passed, I gradually regained my strength. I decided to pick back up drumming in my spare time to help rebuild my muscles and give me something to do. I hadn't played in years, but it felt good to be getting back into practice with it. God love my dad, I knew he hated it. Yet whenever I played while he was around, he never said a word. I often thought of Mike when I played. I knew that he had always loved to play the bass guitar, and we had talked about playing together in the distant past. Now I knew we never would. I rarely touched my computer or any of my other games. The whole ordeal had left a bad taste in my mouth, and right now I wasn't interested in anything of the sort. Nor was I interested in the table-top role playing games I used to be a part of. Without my friends around to joke and 'adventure' with, my heart just wasn't in it anymore.

I found myself thinking of Emilia all the time. I missed her and longed to see her once more, even if it was just her game avatar. I could still visualize her face, including the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. In my dreams, I would hear her call my name, but I could never find her. I often cried myself into exhaustion. I cursed the world and all it had taken from me. I just wanted her here, because in my dreams just wasn't enough. I hated Akihiko Kayaba for all that he had done to me and the others. I wished he was still alive so I could choke the life out of him myself. But in the end, all I came away with was pain and grief. I still thought about suicide. I think my brother and father knew too, because they always seemed to have a watchful eye on me. Every once in awhile, they would find me staring out the window of our home. My hands would be clenched so hard, that my knuckles were white and bulging. They tried to assuage me from my depression, but it didn't help. I think my dad best understood my situation. I remember when my grandfather died, just how broken up my dad was. I had shifted my days off at work so I could spend more time with him and try to keep his attention occupied elsewhere, but it seemed to be of little comfort. I didn't take it personally, after all his father was his best friend. They were much closer than the two of us had ever been. There was only so much that could be done. Now that I was going through something similar, he was always sure to be close if I needed him. Once I was through the worst of it, my brother returned to Arizona, and his work there.

By the time I was able to return to work myself, I was greeted with a number of familiar and friendly faces. I was surprised to see so many people that I knew were still there. After two years, I was sure that many of them would have either moved up or moved on. However, there was a small comfort in them still being around me. Walking into a group of strange, new faces was not something I really wanted to deal with at the moment. Oddly enough, it seemed that I was getting attention from those who had never paid me much heed before. I guess I had attained a certain celebrity status upon surviving SAO and returning to the real world. While I had reaped the benefits of this type of attention back with the transplant, this time I wasn't interested. I just wanted to move on and try to find some peace and balance for myself. Yet, it seemed life had one more curveball to throw me…

 **The Visitation:**

One day in early August, I was sitting on the couch at home with my dad watching a movie. It was a Monday and I was off from work that day just trying to get some laundry done and relaxing. As we sat there, I noticed a dark colored sedan pulling onto our street. The vehicle paused for a moment in front of our house with the driver side facing us before moving on. As it left, I paid it no further heed and looked back to the television screen. When the car pulled up again, this time facing the opposite direction, I frowned and pointed it out to my dad. He paused the movie and got up to see what the deal was. I noticed someone getting out of the vehicle and approaching our front door. It was a tall and burly man dressed in a full three piece suit. He had short cut blonde hair, and a chiseled jawline. As he came up to the door, my dad opened it to face the stranger.

"Can I help you?" my dad asked.

"I'm sorry to bother you sir," the man said with a thick foreign accent. "I was wondering if this is the…" he looked down at something in his hand, "Whit-more residence?" It was odd to hear him sound out the syllables in our last name. Despite his rather intimidating size, he seemed unsure of himself.

"It is, may I ask what this is about, and who you are?" my dad pressed. The man turned around and nodded to someone in the car. This time the front passenger door opened, and another man stepped out. He too was in a full suit and moved towards the rear passenger door. The man at our door turned back to my dad and addressed him again.

"I am here on behalf of Mr. Lukas Weber, of Weber Industries. I have someone here who would like to speak with your son, if you would allow it." Upon hearing the name Weber, I pushed myself up off the couch and approached the door apprehensively. My dad eyed the man suspiciously, while half turning to me. As I got close, the man at the door looked to me. "Ah, you are young Thomas?"

"Yes, I am. Listen, if Mr. Weber wants to talk about what happened…" I started to say. The man raised a hand to stop me.

"Ah, that will not be possible I'm afraid, as Mr. Weber is not here."

"Then who…" I began to ask as I looked out towards the car. By this time, the man by the car had opened the rear door, and I could see a pair of legs sticking out from the interior. They were slim, pale and feminine. I could make out the top of a short black skirt covering the upper legs, as well as a pair of white flats. My heart shot up into my throat and I felt a bit light headed. A hand reached out of the vehicle and closed around the arm of the man standing by the car who offered support for the person getting out. At some point I had brush past both my dad and the man at the door. I was making my way down our walkway on shaky legs toward the sedan. Finally, she emerged from the back seat and into the afternoon sun. She was wearing a black blouse with white highlights. Her hair had been dyed a crimson red color and was worn long with a black hairband. As she stood fully up, she ran her hands underneath her hair to brush it out and resettle behind her. When her gaze met mine, she simply smiled. I began to run to her, but my legs gave out halfway there. I collapsed to my knees trying to keep my equilibrium. When I looked up she was standing over me with her hands on her hips. She didn't have any wings, but she might as well have been an angel.

"Now this won't do at all! I fly halfway around the world just to find you playing in the dirt?" she said. Her words were heaven to my ears. I began to tear up, and saw that she was too, despite trying to put on a tough face. "Hey you, miss me?" As I reached out to her, she helped me back to my feet. Without hesitation, I flung myself into her arms and wrapped her tightly in a hug. "I'll take that as a yes then," she said returning the hug in earnest.

"I thought I had lost you," I said finally sobbing lightly.

"I know, love, I know," she said. "Though if you remember, I did tell you that I would find you in the next life. And I always keep my promises." She lifted my head up then so that our eyes met and kissed me deeply.

In all my life, I have only ever kissed someone like that twice before now. The first was my first girlfriend back in high school. Stephanie was a kind and gentle person who had her life ripped out from under her when Child Protective Services came into her home and removed her and her siblings from the clutches of her abusive father. We grew close during my senior year when I had returned to school after my transplant. We kissed for the first time when I had invited her to my Winter Formal. My second big kiss came when I dated Kristen for the first time. It happened when we were together at my place watching a movie. We were so focused on each other that we ended up ignoring most of the film. While both of those occasions are something that has been forever set into my memory and I will always treasure them, there was something different about this kiss. I don't know if it was the fact that she had returned from the dead as far as I was concerned, or just something that we had been building up to since we first met in Aincrad. Either way, it didn't matter. I just allowed myself to become lost in it.

When we finally broke it off, I held her at arm's length. "I have to know. What happened to you back on the 75th floor?"

"Well, my dad is the head of a major network security company. Weber Industries is one of the leading cyber-security firms in the world. Once he became aware of our situation, he had his team work tirelessly to find a way to subvert the killswitch within the NerveGear helmet. They had been trying for over a year to find a way to remove a helmet without triggering the high output scan that would kill us. Unfortunately, they could only come up with a fifty fifty chance of success, as the helmet was well designed against outside tampering. Hacking the device also proved difficult. During that last October, they finally made a breakthrough by placing a block within the helmet's security routine that gave those on the outside a window of a few seconds to get the thing off before it started its scan. Once my dad felt sure enough that he could get me out of the game without killing me, he had a team do just that. That's when I disconnected and disappeared. As soon as I awoke and learned what had happened, I begged my father to find you and pull you out too. That was when he told me that the rest of those stuck in the game were released moments later." She looked down at her feet, waffling a bit. "I tried to get him to help me find you before now, but he wouldn't allow it until I had recovered sufficiently. I'm sorry I didn't contact you sooner to let you know I was alive. I'm sure you've been through hell with your own recovery." I shook my head to show her that I wasn't angry with her.

"No, it's fine. I'm just so happy that you actually made it. Now I get to keep my own promise that I made you," I said smiling at her and starting to lead her towards the house. "Say, would you like to meet my dad?" I asked her.

"You know what, I'd love to." she said smiling back.

 **The End**

~ 81 ~


End file.
